Law & Order

EPA Permits More Scrap Tires to Be Burned as Fuel

By SEMA Washington, D.C., Staff

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will now permit tire factory scraps and blemished tires (off-specification tires) to be burned as fuel rather than treated as solid waste. The action clarifies a 2011 rule governing tire-derived fuel (TDF), which already permits whole and shredded scrap tires that are free of metal to be burned as non-waste fuel, at the user’s discretion. Tires collected through public recycling programs (for example, amnesty days) may also be processed as fuel. 

For more information, contact Stuart Gosswein at stuartg@sema.org.