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Recycling for tires that crossed the border

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The sale of used U.S. tires for decades has been a bustling business for Tijuana’s numerous tire shops, or llanteras. But the tires create a waste problem, one with repercussions on both sides of the border.

With funding from the state of California, the Imperial Beach-based environmental group Wildcoast is spearheading a binational effort to address the issue. A pilot project launched this month in Tijuana’s Laureles Canyon aims to collect up to 100,000 tires, shred them, and recycle the scraps into materials such as bricks and asphalt.

“It is important to understand that we can only solve this problem together,” said Fay Crevoshay, policy director for Wildcoast, which is also a registered nonprofit in Mexico.

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The one-year project will focus on three areas in Tijuana near the U.S. border: Los Laureles, Zona Río and Matadero Canyon. In rainy weather, discarded tires not only can clog streambeds in Mexico but also end up downstream in the U.S. federally protected Border Field State Park and Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

A 2009 study by San Diego State University’s Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias estimated about 1 million used tires are exported from California to Mexico each year.

California is supporting the project through the state’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, or CalRecycle, the agency charged with mitigating the effects of improper tire disposal. The funds were included in the state’s 2015-16 budget in an effort to improve environmental conditions on the border, as part of a request by Assembly member Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, whose district includes Imperial Beach.

The project also involves the participation of Baja California’s Environmental Protection Secretariat. A Mexican company, Promotora Ambiental de la Laguna, has been contracted to pick up the waste tires and shred them, while another firm, Eco-Commodities, will find purchasers for the material who could use it to make energy, create bricks and asphalt, or use it in playgrounds and sports facilities.

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

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