Dive Brief:

• The Mississippi County landfill in Luxora, AR is dealing with a peculiar infestation: used tires. 
• At a recent meeting between the director of the landfill, Nathan Taylor, and the Mississippi County Solid Waste Management District Board, the parties noted that the improper collection of tires is becoming an outsize problem for the landfill.
• The illegal dumping is creating a major headache for landfill employees, who have to rush to remove the tires before the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) fines them.

Dive Insight:

ADEQ regulations allow individuals to bring up to four tires annually to the landfill. After the quota is reached, people have to fill out paperwork and pay fees to dispose of additional tires. Since that obviously isn't happening, officials are proposing the construction of four new collection trailers at an expense of $27,800. 

Tire disposal is a prevalent policy issue in many states. In May, Colorado announced it was putting an end to subsidizing tire disposal. The state has about 60 million tires amassed at landfills, brought in from in by local and out-of-state haulers. Recyclers warn that after the new regulations are implemented and the collection sites are shuttered, illegal dumping cases will rise substantially. 

There’s also the issue of where the landfill's tire piles will eventually end up. Luckily, a facility that has been touted as the world’s largest tire recycling facility opened in Houston, TX in May. The plant can process 10 million tires annually, according to company estimates. And from the looks of it, the facility won’t be running short on tires anytime soon.