That’s about to change, says Environment Minister John Gerretsen.

Ontario motorists will likely be required to pay a fee of a few dollars when they buy new tires to ensure they’re recycled later, under a plan now being developed.

"It’s unacceptable that Ontario is the only jurisdiction in Canada that doesn’t have (a tire recycling program) right now and that’s why we want to get one going as quickly as possible," Gerretsen said.

He has already talked to Waste Diversion Ontario, which creates recycling programs, and Gerretsen said he expects the government will approve a tire program this year.

Tuesday’s provincial budget included $200,000 to prepare an up-to-date inventory of tire stockpiles because there’s little accurate information about the millions of stored tires.

In other provinces, when people buy passenger vehicle tires, they generally pay a fee of between $3 and $5. That money is used to recycle the old tires into products from running tracks to roof shingles.

Ontario once had a similar fee, $5 per tire, but don’t try calling that a recycling program in front of Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller.

"That was the worst of all worlds. They were charging and everyone believed there to be a program, but the money was going to the general revenue stream," said Miller, who was a bureaucrat at the time.

Given that unpopular tire tax – introduced by David Peterson’s Liberals in 1989 and killed by Bob Rae’s NDP in 1993 – recent governments have shied away from implementing a new tire program.

In 2005, when Waste Diversion Ontario proposed charging a $4 fee on passenger vehicle tires and a $6 fee on truck tires – and making sure the money was actually spent on recycling – the ghost of the previous program rose and in the middle of the controversy, Premier Dalton McGuinty killed it.

"There will be no tire tax. Everybody get that one?" McGuinty told reporters then.

When asked about that, Gerretsen said: "I’d rather not dwell on the past as to what happened when it didn’t happen.

"We as a government want to get much more aggressive in the whole recycling field. Whether we’re talking about blue box, hazardous waste, electronic waste or the tire program, we can do so much more," he said.

That Gerretsen is taking the plunge on a new tire program is great, Miller said.

Right now, it’s hard to say what’s happening with the 12 million old tires Ontarians throw away each year. The Canadian Rubber Association estimates roughly half are shipped to the United States where they are burned as fuel and the rest are recycled, here or elsewhere, or stockpiled.

"There is some amount of tire recycling, but it’s sporadic," Miller said. There’s a firm in Toronto that turns used tires into subflooring for new buildings and car parts and another in Woodbridge that makes playground surfaces, so, left on its own, the private market in Ontario has made inroads.

But there are consequences to not having a provincial program to direct efforts, Miller said.

For one, there’s no way to know that a company that takes used tires is actually recycling them and not just stockpiling them or shipping them for use as fuel.

"Tires are still being stockpiled and improperly disposed of," said Miller, who doesn’t oppose some tires being used as fuel but thinks public policy should push toward higher-end recycling uses.

This week’s budget included $1.5 million to clean up an illegal stockpile of 300,000 tires in Middlesex County.

The 1990 Hagersville tire fire near Hamilton showed just how dangerous such stockpiles can be.

That blaze, involving 14 million tires, burned for 17 days and forced the evacuation of 1,200 people. It cost the province $10 million to fight the fire and clean up the mess. (The blaze prompted other provinces to pass laws to properly handle and recycle tires.)

A government-directed tire program could also force higher-end recycling, such as breaking down the tires into their original components and reusing the oil, carbon and steel, said Miller, instead of doing what’s easiest – such as burning tires for fuel or making blasting mats that are used in mining and construction but ultimately wind up in a landfill.

"We have the economies of scale, the technology, the markets, we should be doing the best of anybody in Canada," on tire recycling, Miller said.

Gerretsen seems to agree. He speaks excitedly about Nova Scotia where tires are turned into roof shingles.

"My golly, I had a couple of them in my hand, I actually couldn’t tell any difference. It’s imagination like that, that we need as we go along," Gerretsen said.

There will be controversy, too. Whether the fee is upfront for consumers, as was suggested the last time, or is charged to manufacturers who pass it on through a higher priced tire, consumers pay more.

Other provinces have opted for the upfront fee. That generally goes to a not-for-profit corporation that manages the recycling program on behalf of the government. It is expected Ontario would do something similar.

"The current minister has said something is coming back, we’ll have to wait and see, but I don’t anticipate it will be much different" than the $4 fee system proposed in 2005, Miller said.

While environmentally positive, this is politically challenging for the Liberals because opposition parties will try to label it as a broken promise not to raise taxes.

But Miller thinks Ontarians are well prepared for this one.

Recently, a friend asked him about the "environmental tax" he paid when he replaced his old tires.

"It’s a disposal fee that (shops) are charging on the old tires when you get new ones and they’re calling it a tax," Miller said. "That has been happening in many tire shops across the province. … So if (the government) put this in place to drive recycling, I don’t think it would be as hard to implement because there’s an expectation now that in most shops when you buy tires you have to pay something." (Tire Review/Akron)