Across the country, engineers, recyclers, researchers and entrepreneurs are finding new ways to give end-of-life tires a second life.
As part of USTMA’s Full Circle platform and America 250 Second Life Stories initiative, these stories highlight the people helping build sustainable end-use markets for recycled tires while solving real infrastructure challenges in their communities.
OHIO
Tim Landers, Midwest Region Sales Director, Liberty Tire Recycling
A State That Learned the Hard Way
In the early 1990’s, a tire pile in Sycamore, Ohio caught fire and did not stop burning for months. The Kirby Tire Recycling site, 50 miles from Columbus, sent plumes of smoke so high that they were visible nearly 100 miles away and as far as the state capital. Air quality alarms spread across the region. By any measure, it was an environmental catastrophe. More importantly, it became the defining moment Ohio confronted how it managed its end-of-life tires.
Fortunately, Tim Landers was there to meet the challenge. As a former longtime leader at Liberty Tire Recycling, one of the largest tire recycling companies in the country, Tim watched the aftermath unfold in real time. For seven years, Liberty crews remained at the Kirby site, grinding and removing tires after the fire. Even after that, it took another two years to fully address the contaminated water.
You couldn’t imagine a worse scenario for developing its scrap tire law. But sometimes you need a crisis to catalyze real change.” – Tim Landers
Building a System That Works
In response, Ohio built one of the nation’s most comprehensive end-of-life tire management programs combining fees, strong regulatory oversight, and consistent enforcement. The results are significant, and today, according to the Ohio EPA, more than 43 million used tires have been remediated, reflecting decades of sustained commitment.
Tim Landers has been central to building the Ohio system. His work spans collection, processing, market development, and regulatory compliance, representing the full second life cycle from when a used tire comes off a vehicle to when it finds its next purpose. At Liberty Tire, a second life can take many forms: crumb rubber for athletic fields and playground surfaces, tire-derived fuel, and increasingly, Tire Derived Aggregate (TDA) for civil engineering applications.
Ohio’s TDA market is now well established, supported by a regulatory framework that requires licensed haulers, documented chain of custody, and verified end-users. Liberty reports every tire it handles with the Ohio EPA tracking where it goes and what product it becomes. That level of accountability was built project by project, relationship by relationship, over more than three decades.
Expansion and What’s Next
Tim’s work in Ohio helped Liberty refine an approach they’ve now scaled nationally. The company operates across more than 36 states, building collection and processing capacity in every region where it hauls tires. The core principle of local collection, local processing and local markets has proven durable across very different regulatory and market environments.
For TDA specifically, the growth opportunity Tim sees is in connecting the dots between tire recyclers, civil engineers, and state transportation departments. The material is proven to perform well, and the standards exist, including ASTM guidelines (D6270-25), to give engineers the confidence to specify TDA for their projects. What’s needed now is continued market development: engineers who know they can rely on it, DOT project managers who’ve written it into specifications, and advocacy from leaders like Tim who can back up the value with numbers.
Ohio’s journey from the Kirby fire to a nationally recognized model was possible because of many stakeholders that continued working on the problem long after the smoke cleared. That kind of persistence is what it takes to build a real market.
Fast Facts
- 43 million+ used tires remediated in Ohio since program launch
- 215 million tires collected and 4.7 billion pounds reclaimed annually by Liberty nationwide
- 81% of the material Liberty collects is sent to beneficial reuse
For more information, visit libertytire.com.