Receives $750,000 grant from Waste Tire Trust Fund
Contact: Eva Smith-Carroll 502-564-6716
FRANKFORT, Ky. (July 11, 2006) - Four million scrap tires are generated in Kentucky every year. Left in open dumps, scrap tires pose a fire hazard and a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Placed in landfills, whole tires can cause subsidence. The solution: take tires out of the waste stream.
To that end, a $750,000 grant from the state Waste Tire Trust Fund has been awarded to Wickliffe Paper Co., part of NewPage Corp., to underwrite capital costs in connection with use of shredded scrap tires as boiler fuel at its paper mill in Ballard County.
The grant for “tire-derived fuel” (TDF) is part of the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet’s continuing effort to encourage an environmentally friendly market for scrap tires, said R. Bruce Scott, director of the cabinet’s Division of Waste Management.
Use of TDF will reduce the company’s fuel bill and lower the disposal costs per tire. It costs 28 cents to landfill a tire and 20 cents to convert it for use as tire-derived fuel.
In 2001 a grant for $454,276 was given to Owensboro Municipal Utilities that required use of 750,000 tires. The OMU grant expired in 2004, but the utility continues to use about 900,000 tires per year.
Under the Wickliffe Paper grant requirements, the company will begin using TDF before Dec. 31, 2007, and must use 37,500 tons by Dec. 31, 2012. This is an average of 7,500 tons or 750,000 waste tires per year.
"The NewPage paper mill in Wickliffe is proud to partner with the Kentucky Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet through receiving this grant award," said Ray Dailey, the company’s director of environmental affairs. "The mill has worked with the cabinet to evaluate and permit the combustion of tire-derived fuel in our waste wood boiler. It will produce process steam for our pulp and papermaking process and at the same time provide a market for waste tires generated in the state.”
Wickliffe will buy shredded scrap tires from contractors who pick up tires from dealers. Shreds are less than 2 inches wide. Shredded tires will be used as a fuel supplement - up to 15 percent TDF - in the boiler.
To support the use of TDF, the company will do any or all of the following: install a new metering system - a hopper and device to feed TDF into the system at a prescribed rate - with a roof to prevent rain freezing in the TDF. The company may also construct a concrete storage pad and conveyor belts and make improvements to the combined air system.
The Waste Tire Trust Fund, administered by the Division of Waste Management, was established in 1998 by the Kentucky General Assembly. The fund receives a $1 fee from new tire sales. Grants totaling $2.5 million have been awarded for school and park projects using another waste tire by-product - “crumb rubber” mulch.
More than $16 million has been spent on amnesty and cleanup projects around the state. The division is planning round three of the tire amnesty program this fall. There is $4.6 million budgeted for this effort through 2010.
