U.S., Mexico have a tire-induced headache
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050120-9...
By Sandra Dibble
January 20, 2005
TIJUANA ? Millions of used tires from the United States are ending their days in Mexico, causing headaches for border communities faced with a growing
disposal problem.
The topic was a central theme here yesterday as U.S. and Mexican environmental officials discussed waste management issues that link border residents
from Tijuana to Matamoros.
"It's a problem begging for a solution," said Matt Hale, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Solid Waste.
The EPA estimates that as many as 40 million scrap tires end up in the border region. The agency and its Mexican counterpart, the Secratariat for the
Environment and Natural Resources, or Semarnat, are giving themselves until the end of this year to develop a scrap-tire strategy/
The two-day meeting, which concludes today, is being held under the auspices of Border 2012, a 10-year program that seeks to address environmental
problems along the border.
In this week's meeting, representatives of state and federal agencies on both sides of the border have focused on ways to reduce land contamination ?
from tracking hazardous waste to cleaning up contaminated sites.
Tires have been a major topic, as one of Border 2012's goals is to clean up three of the largest sites for abandoned tires in the U.S.-Mexico border
region.
Used U.S. tires have for years been a bustling business in northern Mexico. Mexican tire importers, llanteros, sell them to consumers who squeeze
additional mileage out of them before getting rid of them for good. The enterprise has left unwanted tires in communities all along the border,
creating a range of environmental problems. Old tires are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and pollute the air when they catch fire.
There are a growing number of uses for scrap tires, including roads, playgrounds and retaining walls. But many Mexican communities don't have the
money for such recycling.
"The quick, easy and cheapest solution is the cement plants" where scrap tires are used as fuel, said Daniel Chac?n Anaya, general director of
Semarnat's hazardous waste division.
Even so, they must be transported to the plants, and that costs money, too. And cement kilns can't accept all tires.
Across the Texas border, Ciudad Juarez is trying to get rid of 4.5 million used tires. A cement plant has agreed to burn 500,000 tires a year, the
same number of tires discarded annually.
Baja California has an estimated 3 million scrap tires, said Sa?l Guzm?n, an official with Semarnat's office in Tijuana.
The agency began tackling the problem in the state's two largest cities last year, collecting 40,000 tires in Tijuana and more than 90,000 in
Mexicali. They were taken to a cement plant in Ensenada, where they were used for fuel.
Some Mexican communities are testing alternative uses for tires, such as grinding them into asphalt or using them to build embankments. In Monterrey,
they are being used to control erosion around a landfill. And Matamoros, Chacon said, is testing a Canadian technology that converts the tires into
fuel to generate electricity.
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