Contractor’s Report
to CalRecycle
30
Section 4
Outlook for Increasing Waste Tire Diversion
This section analyzes the outlook for increasing waste tire diversion in California, starting with a
look at historical trends. Next, the short-term diversion outlook over the next two years is
described. This is followed by a broad look at opportunities for expansion and barriers in each
market segment. Some brief concluding remarks finish out this section and the report.
Historical Waste Tire Diversion Trends
CalRecycle has adopted a goal of increasing the diversion rate to 90 percent by 2015. As shown
in Figure 6, California waste tire diversion steadily increased from about 31 percent in 1990 to
about 75 percent in 2001, and then hovered between 72 and 75 percent throughout the 2000s. In
2010 the diversion rate jumped to more than 80 percent and in 2011 diversion jumped again to
nearly 88 percent. In 2012 the rate exceeded CalRecycle’s goal for the first time, at 92.7 percent,
with the amount of tires landfilled declining to an all-time low for the third year in a row. Since
2009, rising diversion rates have been largely fueled by the growing waste tire and tire-derived
fuel exports; however, this trend appears to have peaked for waste tire exports in late 2012.
Figure 6
Waste Tire Diversion and Disposal Trends
