Our View: The devil (and the good) is in the details for scrap tire report

Cautious optimism was the tenor following the Oct. 24 release of the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association's 2023 Scrap Tire Report, but things are not always what they seem. The biennial publication that details the number, origin and disposition of scrap tires in the U.S. demonstrated accurate but perhaps anomalous findings.

To wit, the apparent good news that fewer end-of-life tires were generated—about 264 million in 2023—and a higher percentage found ELT markets outside of landfills—about 79 percent—may not be dependable trends in either case.

Not once since the report first was published by USTMA in 2013 has the amount of scrap tires declined over a previous two-year period, according to John Sheerin, director of end-of-life tire materials for USTMA.

Without fail, people drive more cars more miles every year, right? Yes, until a pandemic occurs and they don't.

The second piece of data that may be specious is the ELT market percentage jump at 79 percent in 2023 against 71 percent in 2021.

Promising, yes, but perhaps not an analytic on which data keepers can depend, according to Sheerin.

Every year, save the 2021 report, the largest ELT market disposition has been tire-derived fuel, leading once again in 2023 at 33 percent. However, the TDF market is dependent upon energy costs, and more TDF is used in cement kilns and paper and pulp mills when energy costs are high—and vise versa.

The same relationship—TDF use to energy prices—could have affected the massive, 190-percent jump in exported ELTs (from 2021 to 2023) as well.

India has emerged as a major importer of U.S. ELTs as fuel for the country's pyrolysis stream, another market where ELT use is a function of energy costs. When energy is more expensive in India, they are likely to import more ELTs for TDF.

There is plenty of good news from the 2023 report as well.

While the USTMA would prefer ground rubber take the lead once again over TDF (ground rubber comprised 28 percent of ELT disposition in 2023), ground rubber is not dependent upon a macro-economic factor like energy costs.

Rather, this ELT market is a function of research and development, one of the main reasons why so many complex partnerships are forming in the ELT space.

Mulch and sports flooring, subsets of ground rubber, maintained their strength between 2021 and 2023, as many playground, sports complex and other backyard projects were completed using ground rubber.

And ironically, the 20-percent hike in landfill numbers in 2023 likely is more accurate than 2021 data, a function of better, more honest reporting from states and collection agencies, Sheerin said.

Finally, tires remain the second-highest regulated product to find second lives, behind lead acid batteries.

Because of increasingly robust recycling programs by state, 26 of 50 states have no stockpiled scrap tires, and another 20 states have fewer than 1 million.

So while the typical bellwether statistics on which scrap tire reports are judged may be somewhat misleading, there appears to be good in the details, as well.