MILLIONS OF DISCARDED TIRES STACKED ALONG THE COUNTRYSIDE

There are a lot of uses for old tires -- bumpers for boat docks, backyard swings, flower beds, supplemental industrial fuel, and school playground decorations. They also can be retread or capped for additional use on vehicles.

Still, getting rid of hundreds of millions of discarded tires each year can be a local, state and national nightmare.

Tire recycling could be an answer, but with only a handful of recycling or shredding operations in the state, there's still the problem of getting the tires into recyclers' hands.

A new plan is being put together by the House Environment Committee of the Missouri Legislature to try to fix a three-year-old tire law that apparently is not working.

In 1991 the state legislature banned old tires from landfills to save landfill space. That is working for the landfills, but old tires are beginning to show up in rivers, streams, woods and illegal dumps.

Included in the original law was a 50-cent fee on the sale of each new tire to generate money that the state can use for tire cleanup. But there's another charge to the customer who wants to leave the old tires with tire dealers.

"It cost us anywhere from $1.50 to $10, or even more in cases of big truck and tractor tires, to dispose of these tires," said one dealer in the Cape Girardeau area. "We pass that cost on the customer."

"All tire dealers have about the same situation," said Jim Johnson, a salesman at Plaza Tire Service, which has locations at 2301 William and 1 S. Main in Cape Girardeau. "We all have to make arrangements to dispose of old tires."

Johnson said Plaza Tire, like others, had to pay to dispose of the tires. "We find approved haulers and pay them to haul the tires away. Probably as many as 90 percent of our customers want us to dispose of the old tires."

"Right now, we're sending our old tires to Kentucky," said Herman Lintner, owner/manager of Raben Tire Inc., 3480 Nash Road. "The hauler is DNR approved and takes the tires to Russellville, Ky. to a recycler."

Crader Tire & Retread Service Inc., 5218 Birk Road near Jackson, sends the bulk of its old tires to Decatur, Ill.

"Fees for getting rid of the old tires can run from $2 to $15, ranging from an automobile tire to a big truck, or tractor tire," said Bud Schilling, manager at Crader. "Sometimes when we accumulate a truck load we deliver them to the Decatur recycling operation. Sometimes the recycler will pick them up here."

There are some individuals, however, who don't want to pay disposal costs and keep the tires. Those tire that might wind up in an illegal tire dump. The new Missouri bill is taking aim at that situation.

Under the new proposal is a stipulation that tire buyers will have to turn in an old tire for every new one bought -- unless they can show they have a "legitimate use for the tire and will not dispose of it illegally."

This could create more paper work for tire dealers, but many agree that something needs to be done.

Tire haulers also will have additional paper work. The new plan says haulers may not be paid by tire dealers for hauling away old tires until they have a receipt showing that they took the old tires to a legal disposal site.

Money for cleaning up old tires (there are about 10 to 15 million tires stacked up in Missouri) will be increased, with 72 percent of the money collected from the 50-cent fee -- which will remain intact -- to be used for tire cleanup.

Last year, only $100,000 of the more than $1.5 million collected from the 50-cent fee was used for illegal tire dump cleanup. About $900,000 was used for grants to companies for development of markets for old tires.

One major illegal tire dump is north of Bonne Terre, where as many as a million old tires have been stacked along Highway 67.

"We're taking bids for the cleanup now," said Kate Walker, of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' solid wastes division. "We have seven bids in and hope to get the cleanup started May 1, with a completion date of July 1."

A number of recycling facilities are available in the state, noted Walker.

One of those, the Jack Walters Tire Shredders Unlimited of High Ridge has been in contact with several area tire dealers with a proposal to bring a portable tire shredder in the area from time to time.

"We'll be there next week," said Jack Walters. "We have made some arrangements to shred some tires there, and we'll be bringing one of our large portable shredders there Monday or Tuesday."

Lone Star Industries Inc. of Cape Girardeau, one of the largest users of energy in the area, has converted its coal-burning cement kiln into a system that also will burn shredded rubber and toxic waste fuels, and will be using some of the tires shredded by Walters next week.

Lone Star, which burns about a ton of shredded rubber an hour, is licensed for 2.4 tons per hour, and receives shredded tires from all over the United States.

"Every ton of tires we burn represents 1.2 tons of coal," said Norris Johnson, process engineer-control room supervisor at Lone Star. Before the switchover, Lone Star was burning as much as 600 tons of coal each day in the production of more than 4,000 tons of cement daily.

Lone Star will participate in a "Waste Tire Conference," to be held May 5 at Columbia. The conference is sponsored by the University of Missouri-Columbia and DNR.

Among other companies who are using shredded tires as supplemental fuel are Union Electric, headquartered in St. Louis, and Holman Co., a large cement-producing firm at Clarksville.

Union electric started burning shredded tires last year at its Sioux Plant in St. Charles County, burning about a million tires. The UE program could burn up to more than two million tires discarded this year.

Companies utilizing the tires as fuel say the tires give off twice the heat as coal and cost less.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one tire is tossed each year for every man, woman and child in the country, more than 250 million nationwide. But there are markets for only 75 million to 80 million tires. The rest pile up at various sites.