Smith briefs Enterprise Rotary on county tire center

“I don’t know that it is an environmental hazard to the point they say it is, but we are one of the five states that still allow you to put whole tires into the ground,” Smith said. “Obviously some people think you need to do something with these tires other than leaving them in the ground.”

There are more than seven million scrap tires created annually in Alabama.

Smith explained to the Rotarians that ADEM initially created a scrap tire fund to deal with the problem.

Originally, the fund provided counties in Alabama with money to help them relocate scattered scrap tires.

“They were giving around a dollar per tire and that money accumulated. Each county could get up to $100,000,” Smith said. “Everybody likes to be stewards of the land but they were paying good money to take tires from one place and put them somewhere else and there needs to be a better way.” 

Smith said ADEM began looking for someone to take on the task of building the state’s first scrap tire processing center a little over a year ago.

“Coffee County stepped up to the plate, so to speak,” he said.

According to Smith, the main goals of the project are to create an alternative to landfilling whole scrap tires in the state of Alabama and to do so at a rate that’s economical for everyone involved.

“We wanted to develop a facility that could accept scrap tires and process those tires into a beneficial reused product,” he said. “We’re also wanting to a establish a feed stock of advanced in-user markets such as mulch, crumb rubbers for athletic fields and rubber modified asphalts.”

Smith said the county is looking to contract with a national entity that will use the finished product once the rubber from the tires has been processed. 

“The facility will process 1.6 to 2 million tires a year,” he said. “That’s not enough capacity to attract the type of business or industry that I’m envisioning. That would be more along the lines of 4 million tires per year.”

Smith said the SWDA has sent out 96 request proposals to various entities and has received four serious proposals that relate to bringing tires into the center and receiving the final product. 

“We’re looking at charging somewhere around 90 cents to a dollar per tire received,” Smith said. “After it’s ground the rubber could sell for anywhere from $25 a ton to $80 a ton, depending on market price and the size of the rubber.”

According to Smith, when the tire center is operational it will have the capability to process a third of the tires in the state and all of the tires in the southern half of the state.

“If it’s successful here I can see one of the same type opening up elsewhere in the state,” he said. “The closest two facilities like this to us are in Jacksonville, Florida and Jackson, Mississippi.”

Smith said the tire center could create anywhere from 15 to 200 jobs in the area depending on the level of production and the buyer of the final product.

“We’ll be able to process 18,665 tons of tires annually,” Smith said. “That breaks down to 5,616 tons of one inch rubber chips and 1,330,000 pounds of steel, that we would then sell.”

Smith said the tire center has the potential to be quite profitable for the county and beneficial for the surrounding communities.

“The county has nothing to lose other than maybe a very small amount of operating cost,” Smith said. “We’re only required by ADEM to process tires for seven years. Even if we don’t, their only recourse would be to seize the equipment.”

Smith added that the role of the tire center is subject to evolve and change as the county decides what would be the most beneficial way to move forward.

“We may only be processing a few hundred thousand tires and selling bulk rubber to someone a year from now, but I guarantee you that’s not the goal of the project,” he said. “It’s going to start small but we’ve got big expectations.”