U.S. end-of-life tire generation, markets, and state stockpiles, 1990-2025.
How generated tires were split across markets in the selected year, and how utilization and overall management rates moved.
Millions of tires generated in the selected year, broken out by source. Light-duty replacement tires (passenger + light truck) have consistently made up the large majority of units generated, while medium/heavy truck and scrapped-vehicle tires are a smaller share of units but weigh disproportionately more per tire. Hover a segment for its value and share. *For 1996–2003, “Scrapped Light Duty Vehicles” is still a combined cars+trucks+buses figure — the Rubber Manufacturers Association did not report that split separately until 2005.
Share of tonnage within each of the two largest markets, by end use, for the year selected above. Some early years (1990–1998) only have an unsplit sub-market total for ground rubber — the Rubber Manufacturers Association didn’t begin publishing the detailed breakdown until 2001.
Cement kiln use is growing as CO₂-reduction pressure and the biogenic content of tire-derived fuel (about 24%, EPA’s default for tires) make it an attractive alternative fuel.
Only about 20 states issue ELT reports, so loose mulch is likely under-captured in state data. Rubber-modified asphalt (13% of the ground rubber mix) is drawing state and local funding: Kentucky awarded more than $1.16 million, California made $6.57 million available, and Caltrans committed $9 million to repave State Route 39.
Exact state-by-state counts for both years, per USTMA’s own tracker (dated October 2026).
The map above shows magnitude — how large each state’s 2025 stockpile is (None · <1M · 1M–5M · 5M–10M · 10M–20M · >20M tires; gray = no state-level figure reported that year). The table below instead shows direction: ▲ red = up 15%+ since 2023 (or a new stockpile where none existed) · ▼ green = down 15%+ (or fully resolved) · — gold = within 15% of the 2023 figure. These are two different questions about the same data, so they intentionally use two different color keys.
This table always shows the 2023 → 2025 comparison — it does not change with the year selector above, since exact state-level figures only exist for those two years.
How USTMA and the tire industry stack up against two different yardsticks: the policy landscape across all 50 states, and other recyclable materials’ own end-use performance.
Aggregate counts from USTMA’s own legislative tracker. Cross-checks the state-by-state program summary built separately: the 41/9 split on “whole tires banned from landfill” matches exactly. Current-status counts only — does not change with the year selector above.
2025 end-use rate vs. other recyclable materials. Each icon = 10% of that material’s own generation reaching an end-use market (recycling, reuse, or energy recovery) — same pictogram treatment as the full report’s “Tire Recycling vs. Other Materials” exhibit. Tires’ 79% trails only lead-acid batteries.
Sources: Battery Council International (2026, 2020–2024 study period) · USTMA (2025 % to Market/Utilized) · American Forest & Paper Association (2026, 61–65% reported for 2025) · Aluminum Assoc. & Can Mfrs. Institute (2024) · Glass Packaging Institute (2019, 2018 beer/soft-drink bottle rate of 39.6%) · NAPCOR PET recycling report (annual; U.S. PET bottle rate has run ~27–33% across recent editions). Static comparison — does not change with the year selector above.
Six historical exhibits extending the interactive year-selector data above back to 1990, using Rubber Manufacturers Association/USTMA historical ELT market and management summary reports and best efforts to merge different reporting conventions over time.
Total to Market and Generated in thousand tons (left axis); Market % (right axis) is Total to Market ÷ Generated. 1990-2003 converted from each era’s own tire-count retrospective at 20 lbs/tire (10.0K tons/million tires), Rubber Manufacturers Association’s assumption through its 2003 report, before the heavier 13.827K tons/million tires factor took effect with the 2005 report, published in 2006; 2005 onward are Rubber Manufacturers Association’s published tonnage figures. Same underlying figures as the deck’s exhibit of the same name.
Thousand tons diverted per market. Extended back to 1990 using Rubber Manufacturers Association’s historical reports (pre-2005 figures converted from each report’s native tire-count basis). Click a legend item to isolate or hide a series.
Land Disposed is not a market. It is the tonnage that did not reach a market in that year and was legally landfilled, shown here for scale alongside the real markets (per reporting conventions used since 2001; earlier years also count tires added to stockpiles here, since those reports did not track the two separately).
Other/Misc. and Unaccounted added 2026-09-10 so this chart’s totals reflect full Generation, matching the report’s deck/booklet exhibit of the same name. Three years show a gap in one of these two bands rather than a value: 2007 and 2013 (Unaccounted) and 2011 (Other/Misc.) each compute to a small negative from that year’s source tables not cross-footing exactly against Generation -- shown as a gap rather than plotted as zero, so the chart does not silently misstate the underlying arithmetic.
Thousand tons diverted to ground-rubber sub-markets. 2005–2025 uses Rubber Manufacturers Association’s own reported/reconciled tonnage (Automotive folded into Molded & Extruded, Export dropped, Asphalt = Rubberized Asphalt). 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 & 2023 are each rescaled so the four categories sum to Rubber Manufacturers Association’s top-level Ground Rubber total for that year, preserving that year’s own reported split across categories (the as-reported sub-market figures for this stretch appear to measure ground rubber net of metal/fiber removal, on a different basis than the top-level total). 1992 reflects only Rubberized Asphalt, the sole ground-rubber use tracked that early. 1994/1996/1998 (gray bars, plus a separate Rubberized Asphalt figure) are from the 2001 report’s own Appendix B retrospective table, which tracks “ground rubber” as one unsplit total alongside “asphalt rubber” as its own line; 1990 (gray bar) is that report’s own single un-split total, since no sub-market breakdown exists that year.
Thousand tons diverted to TDF sub-markets. Electric Utility Boilers, Industrial Boilers, and Lime Kilns are combined into one category (Lime Kilns was never more than a rounding error, ~0.4K tons in the one year it was reported). 1990, 1992, 1996 & 1998 use Rubber Manufacturers Association’s flat 20 lbs/tire assumption (10.0K tons/million tires), Rubber Manufacturers Association’s factor in its own tables. 2001 & 2003 use the heavier ~27.65 lbs/tire (13.827K tons/million tires) factor instead, since a flat passenger-tire weight understates true tonnage once truck/bus tires are weighted in (per the 1996 report’s own tire-class weight table) — this also reconciles both years exactly with the Market Trends total. Dedicated TTE shows as 0 from 2015 onward because Rubber Manufacturers Association folded it into Electric Utility & Industrial Boilers that year.
Thousand tons diverted to civil engineering applications (also called Tire-Derived Aggregate, or TDA). 1992, 1996 & 1998 converted from Rubber Manufacturers Association’s tire-count retrospective at the flat 20 lbs/tire (10.0K tons/million tires) factor. 2001 & 2003 use the heavier ~27.65 lbs/tire (13.827K tons/million tires) factor instead, since a flat passenger-tire weight understates true tonnage once truck/bus tires are weighted in (per the 1996 report’s own tire-class weight table) — this also reconciles both years exactly with the Market Trends total. 2007–2015 are Rubber Manufacturers Association’s published tons figures; 2017–2025 are USTMA’s own published tons figures.
From ~1 billion tires in 1990 to 42 million in 2025 — a 96% cumulative reduction. Years follow the same reporting cadence as the market-mix data above (1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998*, then odd years 2001–2025), spaced proportionally to the real number of years between points. *1998 is Rubber Manufacturers Association’s estimate, not measured data. Dashed line is an exponential trendline fit to the bars (a straight linear fit would go negative for recent years given how steeply this series decays).
Full bibliography for the 16 prior historical reports the Long View exhibits above draw on, 1990–2023 (this report does not cite itself). Links are included for the editions confirmed hosted on ustires.org.