I have a little bit of personal interest.
Partially due to my Dad teaching me how, I change my own tires. Sometimes I get them spin balanced, other times I static balance them myself. Saves me a bundle.
The county takes 8 or 10 tires a year and that generally works out to get rid of what we use.
Except last year, Covid interrupted the tire collection. And this year, it looks to be the same deal so far (usually it starts in May and so far, nothing)
So now I have about a dozen tires stacked up and four more are ready to come off my DD. Been looking into how I an get rid of the darned things other than paying $10 a pop.
The carcasses are perfectly fine - they’re just worn out. And it’s most of the original material of the tires getting tossed. It’s a ginormous waste.
I’ve tried standard retreads with unimpressive results (they’re really heavy) so that doesn’t seem like the solution.
But I think about it every time I pass my growing pile of used tires. I can’t throw them away. I can’t burn them. It’s like buying a loaf of bread, eating the ends, and tossing the middle.
Been there... It is a personal issue with us too. I was a wholesale/retail tire dealer in Ca for 40 years. I was over regulated right out of business and had to leave Ca with nothing but the shirt on our backs as a family. Had to get a new start in Az basically camping out in a tent and cooking over an open fire with my wife and two teenage daughters off grid.
Fortunately because Az was business friendly at that time we were back on our feet and climbing again one year later. Ended up doing very well the next 20 years and to the point where we are now self retired.
The wrongfully thought out tire disposal regulations are killing the industry, and if they do not change these and make it easier to dispose of tires, pretty soon tires will be completely affordable to but without taking out a loan. Low income folks already have to do this now so that they can have transportation to keep a job.
Tires are a huge problem... the greed has created a huge problem for this country. And the liberals have some idea that when you take off a tire it is supposed to just dissipate and disappear into thin air. They have made it so hard to legally dispose of tires that they are now ending up out in every ravine and freeway offramp folks can find.
The exact extreme opposite of what the laws were intended to prevent. Ironic right? They have absolutely no common sense at all. Nutz...