10 years ago, Tyre and Rubber Recycling reported on a Tijuana Estuary waste tyre issue; it continues still
Back in 2015, Tyre and Rubber Recycling picked up a story about tyres being dumped in the Tijauna river in Mexico.
At that time, the Assembly Committee for Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials travelled to the Tijauna estuary to dig into specifics and get a better grasp of the problem.
The issue was then, as it is now, that tyres dumped in Tijauna in Mexico were washed down the Tijauna River and ended up deposited in the Californian estuary, creating environmental issues for the State.
WILDCOAST’s Fay Crevoshay said then; “This is a problem that goes back 15 years and it is really time to deal with it because we are in an emergency mode.”
The cause of the problem is not just Mexican sourced tyres being dumped but that Californian dealers are exporting used, or waste tyres to Tijuana, where the potentially roadworthy tyres get reused, and with the nearest recycling facility being in Mexicali two and a half hours away, it is simpler for low value operators to simply dump tyres in the waterway. Now, as then, the problem continues.
The Californian tyre recycling fee can only be spent dealing with Californian tyres, and these tyres are, despite being in Californian waters, not California’s tyres since they have already been collected and exported.
There were plans to allocate funds to a Californian third party, and for Baja Mexico’s state to provide some funding to deal with the problem.
However, 10 years down the line it appears that little has changed.
Today, California Environmental Protect Agency estimates that some 3 million used tyres are transported to Mexico.
WILDCOAST’s Associate Director Anne Middleton said “We would love it if Tijuana and the US Government got together to fund a new tyre recycling facility in Tijuana.”
Which, of course is a bit of déjà vu, since this is where they were in 2015, where the problem had been ongoing for the previous 10 years, at least. From a distance, we suspect that the chances of a Trump-led US Government funding a recycling plant in Mexico might be a long shot.
