“Tire processing fees paid by Saskatchewan people on their tires are now going towards creating jobs in Calgary. Not in Saskatchewan.”
Concerns over Saskatchewan tires being recycled out of province have reemerged in light of video footage the NDP says “directly contradicts” assurances previously made by government.
The videos, obtained by the Leader-Post, are narrated by an unseen, unnamed person following a semi truck hauling tires through Rosetown, Saskatchewan.
“Been following this truck with baled tires from Martensville, Saskatchewan. We are west bound, heading to Calgary,” said the man in the video.
A second video shows the semi crossing the border into Alberta.
The NDP played audio from a media availability on April 30 in which Minister of Environment Christine Tell can be heard telling reporters that “the tires are not leaving the province.” She is heard again saying “the tires are not leaving the province.”
“As you see, clearly the government lied,” said Beck.
This issue came to a head when TSS divided processing in Saskatchewan into a north and south zone. That policy resulted in CRM, a California-based company, winning the contract for the south zone in 2022 and led Shercom to shut down its recycling arm in 2023. The Saskatoon company previously held the sole agreement to process used tires in the province.
“We saw dozens of layoffs at a Saskatchewan-based processing company after the Sask. Party gave their contract to a California-based company,” said Beck on Wednesday. The decision to contract two tire processors, which was done with the stated aim to reduce shipping costs and environmental impact, has resulted “in shipping those tires, those same tires to Calgary,” she added.
In an emailed statement Wednesday, CEO of TSS Stevyn Arnt said CRM has “moved minimal quantities of whole tires to a processing facility out of province,” which has been done since May 2023.
“We have also had periods where we had to accommodate unplanned breakdowns and we have managed to accomplish this while setting record recycling volumes for the province,” wrote Arnt.
Beck also took issued with the tire recycling fee (TRF), which is applied to the sale of all new tires in the province.
“Tire-processing fees paid by Saskatchewan people on their tires are now going towards creating jobs in Calgary. Not in Saskatchewan,” she said.
A letter sent to Tell by Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce CEO Jason Aebig also voices concerns over the contract, stating that “TSS’s decisions are undermining Saskatchewan’s free market for tire recycling to the detriment of our local companies and economy.”
The letter, sent on Wednesday, asks for a 50-per-cent reduction to TRFs until all scrap tire processing is conducted in the province.
“The Chamber contended that tire recycling fees paid by Saskatchewan residents should not be used to pay higher shipping costs to transport tires to a US-based processor and support Alberta jobs,” reads the letter.
An emailed statement from the Government of Saskatchewan said “TSS is operating within their approved product stewardship program” and that the province is looking forward to a second tire processing plant coming online.