Virginia DEQ Looks to Solve Tire Pile Problems

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is attempting to develop a plan to reduce a tire recycler’s pile.

The state of Virginia recently filed a consent agreement and a notice of violation with Tire Recyclers Inc., to sharply reduce the pile of tires that have been accumulating at the company’s location.

The notice follows the company’s inability to adequately reduce the tire pile by the predetermined time.

According to Gerard Seeley, Jr., DEQ’s director of the Piedmont Region, the company was issued a notice of violation this past summer. Originally, the company was to reduce the tire pile by November 20, although due to weather problems the deadline was pushed back to Dec. 20^th.

Under the permit, TRI was not to have any scrap tires outdoor.

Seeley acknowledges that the company has been able to reduce the tire piles over the past several months, although the company is still far from complete. According to local press reports the company has been able to reduce the tire pile from between 200-300,000 tires to around 100,000 tires.

The company originally built the facility as a pyrolysis facility. However, the company was unsuccessful in this endeavor. The company now shreds the tires and ships them as tire derived fuel to a co-generation plant where it is used as fuel.

Seeley says that the DEQ and the company are presently trying to come up with a new time to meet. He expects the meeting to be held by the end of this month. At that meeting the two sides will go over some of the options available to clean up the tire pile. One option is to have the state take the lead in the cleanup and bill TRI for the cost.

Another, more confrontational approach is to revoke the company’s permit to take in tires. This, Seeley adds, would likely force the company out of business.