Summary Fact Sheet

"...there's no scientific basis for concluding that burning waste tires in cement kilns is safe."*

The Holcim - Trident cement plant, located northeast of Three Forks just north of the Missouri Headwaters State Park, has submitted a letter of application for a solid waste management system license - to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. Holcim intends to replace a percentage of its current fuel with approximately 650,000 waste tires per year. They call it "recycling". We're concerned about what tire burning will mean to the Gallatin Valley's air and agricultural products.

What's in tires?

What happens when tires are burned?

• The hazardous constituents are released into the air and create new, frequently more toxic compounds.
• Chlorinated materials produce dioxin. Dioxins are some of the most toxic chemicals known; damaging health effects include cancer, birth defects, and impaired child development.
• Incomplete combustion of benzene leads to the creation of highly toxic dioxins, furans, PCB's (polychlorinated biphenals), and PAH's (polyaromatic hydrocarbons) - all known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.
• Metals are not destroyed at any temperature - 100% are emitted from the stack or concentrated in the cement product or in the waste material of the process. Lead is poisonous to the nervous system, known to cause learning disabilities; zinc can cause birth defects; chromium and arsenic can cause cancer.

What's wrong with burning tires in cement kilns?

• Cement kilns are designed to make cement, not to be waste incinerators. Cement kilns are not equipped with secondary combustion chambers to assure complete destruction of wastes.
• Cement kilns do not have to meet the same stringent standards of performance and the emission limits required of commercial incineration facilities.
• Combustion recovers only a portion of the energy contained in a tire; true recycling is much more energy efficient. Tires are being truly recycled into rubberized asphalt roadbeds and other rubber products, such as new tires. Scrap tire shreds are being used successfully as drainage layers under roadways, fill for embankments and retaining walls, frost barriers, and more.

What will be the economic impacts?

• Contaminated agricultural products, fish and game could threaten the area's economic vitality.
• Real estate values could be depressed.
• Tourism could decline. The Trident plant is adjacent to the Headwaters State Park. Thousands of tourists are expected for the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. What will be the effect of burning tires on tourism?
• Holcim would be importing scrap tires; our local communities and agricultural lands would receive the resulting pollution.
• Toxic chemicals released by burning tires at Holcim will become part of the food chain, entering water, soil, plants, livestock, dairy products, and wildlife.
• Studies are finding that indirect exposure to toxins through the food chain presents serious health risks to humans, even more serious than inhaling pollutants.

What's the point?

• Burning tires in cement kilns is neither "recycling" nor a sound disposal solution. Toxic by-products are created and dispersed to enter the food chain and our bodies.
• Holcim - Trident plant's recent operating record casts doubt on its ability to burn wastes safely within set emission standards. Over the past year, Trident reported technical problems that resulted in uncontrolled emissions 4.9% of their total operating time - the EPA considers 5% a problem.
• Holcim plants in other states that are permitted to burn tires and other wastes have been unable to consistently stay within emission limits.

Holcim should not burn wastes to save on fuel costs at the expense of the surrounding communities.