waste tire program; delay
repeal
HB 2101 renews the waste tire fee, fund and program for an
additional five years to December 31, 2007. Retail tire dealers collect a fee of two percent of the purchase price for
each tire, with a maximum fee of $2 per tire. The fees are remitted to the
Department of Revenue (DOR) quarterly for deposit into the waste tire fund. DOR
distributes the monies to DEQ and the counties quarterly. DEQ receives 3.5
percent of the monies in the waste tire fund, and the remainder is distributed
to each county in proportion to the number of motor vehicles registered in that
county. The program is in ARS sections 44-1301 through 44-1307.
The Waste Tire Program, which
describes the procedures for the disposal of waste tires, became law in
1990. Retail tire dealers must accept waste tires from customers for each sale
of a new motor vehicle tire. If the following two conditions are met, retail
tire dealers may dispose of the waste tire free at a county waste tire
collection site: 1.) The tire dealer
must manifest the waste tire to the waste tire collection site; 2.) The waste tire must be a trade-in on a
new tire for which the waste tire fee was paid.
Each county must
establish at least one waste tire collection site within the county for retail
tire dealers and residents to dispose waste tires. The counties are also
responsible for ensuring that the tires are properly disposed and each
individual county determines its own best methods of collection and disposal.
The counties currently operate 20 waste tire collection sites. There are seven
main destinations to which the counties transport their waste tires. End uses include rubberized asphalt, new
tires, athletic fields and playground surfaces, tire derived fuel, small dams along desert washes to inhibit
erosion, floor and wall mats, and monofilling.
DOR reported the
following figures for the FY 2001 Waste Tire Fund. The fund received about
$6.34 million on the sale of approximately 5.66 million new motor vehicle
tires. DEQ received 3.5 percent, about
$220,000. The remaining $6.1 million
was distributed to the counties. In FY
2001, more than 4.1 million waste tires entered the counties’ waste tire
management programs and more than 4 million waste tires were disposed of,
leaving just over 1.1 million waste tires total in all of the county waste tire
collection sites.