{"id":352277,"date":"2025-12-18T01:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T01:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352277\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T01:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T01:24:08","slug":"tires-piling-up-in-ontario-after-recycling-fees-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352277\/","title":{"rendered":"Tires piling up in Ontario after recycling fees dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tire dealers are complaining the wheels have fallen off Ontario\u2019s tire recycling programs as scrap rubber piles up in sites around the province. <\/p>\n

A dispute over how to spend tens of millions of dollars in environmental fees charged to consumers each time they purchase a tire is one of the reasons Ontario\u2019s tire recycling program appears to be spinning out.<\/p>\n

Thousands of scrap tires are piling up in yards and at tire retailers because tire haulers have no place to bring them to recycle them<\/a>, while one of the major tire processors in Southern Ontario walked away from the system, complaining they weren\u2019t paid millions for their work.<\/p>\n

\u201cTires are piling up on the streets. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening,\u201d said Danny Ardellini, whose company E360S shut its Barrie recycling plant down earlier this year. Ardellini says he had to lay off 110 workers because the company never got paid for its work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2024, we were roughly owed, I call it, between $30 and $35 million,\u201d he said. \u201cWe continued on for a full year without getting paid. But then we just couldn\u2019t do it any more, so we had to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consumers pay about $5 a tire, which is collected by tire producers who are meant to use that money to pay to recycle them.<\/p>\n

The system has been phased in since 2019, when producers were given responsibility for recycling, instead of Ontario Tire Stewardship, whose executives faced a corruption investigation.<\/p>\n

But as those producers jostled to claim tens of millions in fees, E360S moved to recycle more tires, attempting to sell credits to rival organizations who needed them to prove they had met their targets.<\/p>\n

Many didn\u2019t buy, choosing to settle with the regulator, the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority (RPRA), for $7.44 million earlier this year instead.<\/p>\n

RPRA told CTV News it doesn\u2019t get involved in commercial disputes, but has reminded producers they are \u201crequired to continue collecting and recycling or retreading tires from the collection system whether targets are required or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those targets were reduced earlier this year from 85 per cent of the weight they sell to 65 per cent of an averaged weight.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s compounded problems for tire haulers, who are also facing problems as other tire recyclers have closed shop too, said Scott Cavanaugh of All Star Transportation and Tire Recycling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere used to be 17 processors in Ontario, and we\u2019re down to about seven or eight, and four of them are in the GTA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the number of truckloads he hauls has dropped substantially.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of tires out there right now. And not a lot of picking up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cavanaugh has started a petition<\/a>, calling for a revamp of the regulations that govern the tire recycling industry.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s pushing to raise the targets, push the regulator to produce public data about where the environmental fees are going, and promote the independence of haulers.<\/p>\n

If the province doesn\u2019t do anything, Cavanaugh says the tires that haven\u2019t been collected could turn into a serious hazard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll catch on fire. That\u2019s very bad for the environment. And that\u2019s not an easy fire to put out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ardellini said he\u2019d still be processing tires if the regulator had required those fees to go to the business that did the recycling.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust enforce the regulation. It\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tire dealers are complaining the wheels have fallen off Ontario\u2019s tire recycling programs as scrap rubber piles up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[712,49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-352277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}