The Ohio EPA is seeking comments on a draft air emissions permit issued to Universal Purifying Technology (UPT). UPT's proposed facility would recover carbon, methane gas, oil, and steel from scrap tires through the pyrolysis process. An engineering definition of pyrolysis is "the thermal degradation of material in an inert, oxygen-free atmosphere or vacuum". The Sierra Club is more concerned with the environmental, energy, and economic implications of pyrolysis, all of which could be summed up in a single word: unsustainable.
Waste management is best accomplished through waste reduction, product reuse, and recycling of materials into other products.
The fastest growing new market for scrap tires is the recycling of tires by shredding them into "coarse rubber" and incorporating them into playground cover, flooring, matting, and landfill construction material. The Rubber Manufacturers Association reports that in 2001, 33 million tires were converted to "coarse rubber" for recycling and an additional 40 million tires were recycled in civil engineering applications. These markets provide useful products, make economic sense, and are environmentally friendly.
Also in 2001, 115 million chipped tires were burned as supplemental fuel in cement kilns, industrial boilers, and pulp and paper mills. This tire-derived fuel produces energy, reduces tire piles, and is economical for some industries, but it fails as an environmentally-friendly solution because there is no material recycling and air pollution is produced.
That brings us to pyrolysis. Despite 20 years of supposed technological "breakthroughs" in the field of pyrolysis, the number of tires used in a pyrolysis process in the U.S., Canada, and Europe combined is zero. Pyrolysis facilities are enormously expensive to build, difficult to operate, and there is little market interest in the carbon, pyrolysis oil, and metal scrap produced by the process. The history of pyrolysis facilities is littered pile with the names of failed tire pyrolysis ventures: Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Firestone, and Texaco; ECO2 Inc. in Florida; Colinas Tire and Repco in Arizona; Conrad Industries in Oregon; Tire Recyclers Inc. in Virginia; and Heartland Industries, Missouri. Economically, pyrolysis has proven to be unsustainable.
Pyrolysis is environmentally unsustainable as well. The process does not conserve the tire material and it emits pollution from multiple sources. And, all too often, when the owners finally leave town, they leave behind tire piles or tire fires. Equally bleak is the energy picture; so much energy is needed to extract the pyrolysis "fuel oil" from the tires, it remains doubtful that there is any net energy production. Tire pyrolysis is an engineering pipe dream with real-world economic and environmental fallout.
The OEPA has crafted an air permit regulating a tire shredder; a tire chip washer and dryer; a pyrolysis unit; two carbon activation units; material handling equipment; and a pelletizing process unit. The OEPA is also reviewing the facility's registration as a scrap tire management facility and determining what financial assurance will be requirements for UPT. Sierra Club representatives will be participating in this permit process to identify areas of the permit which are of concern and to provide the OEPA with any relevant information we gather in our own research efforts.
COG Chair’s note: The COG ExCom has voted to oppose construction of this pyrolysis plant. The plant will be located at the site of the old trash-burning power plant, in a low-income area that already has the worst air quality in the city. A local group, Southwest Neighbors Protecting Our Environment, has formed to oppose the plant. Their contact person is Teresa Mills at 614-871-3529, or <Millstb@aol.com>.