Contractor’s Report
to CalRecycle
8
Section 2
Market Snapshot
This section provides a snapshot of California waste tire markets in 2012 and high-level trends as
of spring 2013. More detailed segment-specific trend information is provided in Section 3.
2012 Diversion Rate
Table 1 lists the number of passenger tire equivalents
1
flowing to each market segment and the
percentage of the total passenger tire equivalents managed, for 2010 through 2012. As in the
previous year, the overall waste tire diversion rate (e.g., diverted from the landfill) increased
significantly, from 87.8 percent in 2011 to 92.7 percent in 2012, marking the first year that
CalRecycle’s long-standing 90 percent goal has been achieved. However, some stakeholders
focus on a more refined recycling rate that excludes waste tire exports (but not used tire exports),
alternative daily cover and tire-derived fuel, which CalRecycle is statutorily prohibited from
promoting. Excluding these segments, the 2012 diversion rate would have been 43.3 percent.
Regardless of one’s view on how to measure recycling or diversion, tire disposal in California hit
another all-time low in 2012, with 3.3 million passenger tire equivalents landfilled, representing
7.3 percent of all tires.
Table 1
Estimated End-Uses for California Generated Waste Tires, 2010– 2012
2
Category
Sub-Category
2010
2011
2012
Percent
change
2011-
2012
Million
PTE
Percent
of Total
Million
PTE
Percent
of Total
Million
PTE
Percent
of Total
Export
Waste Tires
6.4
15.5%
9.6
23.4%
13.5
29.9%
40.8%
Used Tires (Exported)
1.8
4.3%
1.8
4.3%
1.8
4.1%
3.4%
Subtotal
8.1
19.8%
11.3
27.7%
15.3
34.0%
35.0%
Reuse
Retread
3.6
8.8%
4.1
10.0%
4.0
8.9%
-2.0%
Used Tires (Domestic)
2.0
4.9%
2.8
6.9%
3.3
7.4%
18.6%
Subtotal
5.6
13.7%
6.9
16.9%
7.3
16.3%
6.4%
Ground
Rubber
RAC & Other Paving
5.0
12.2%
4.9
11.9%
4.4
9.8%
-9.6%
Turf & Athletic Fields
1.4
3.3%
1.7
4.2%
2.2
4.8%
27.1%
Pour-in-Place
Playground
0.1
0.4%
0.1
0.4%
0.0
0.1%
-68.6%
Loose-Fill
Play/Bark/Mulch
1.1
2.7%
1.1
2.6%
1.8
3.9%
66.8%
Molded & Extruded
0.7
1.7%
0.9
2.2%
1.3
2.9%
44.8%
Other
0.2
0.4%
0.1
0.3%
0.1
0.1%
-49.2%
Subtotal
8.6
20.8%
8.8
21.6%
9.8
21.7%
10.8%
Civil
Landfill Applications
1.8
4.4%
0.6
1.4%
0.6
1.3%
-1.2%
1
PTE stands for passenger tire equivalents, which is defined by the State of California to equal 20 pounds. Data for
2010 and 2011 are from the “California Waste Tire Market Report: 2011.”
2
Numbers may not sum to subtotals or totals exactly due to rounding.
