Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/148910
feature Used wheel weights Transitioning from lead to alternatives has created recycling challenges By Bob Bissler L ead wheel weights remain in a state of fux. Currently in the United States, their use is banned in only six states, although other states have proposed bans. Part of the reason is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has asked for a voluntary shif away from lead. And it appears to be working, although slowly. "We are seeing that the majority of the market is switching on its own," says Greg Parker, marketing manager at Perfect Equipment Inc. He estimates that the North American market is roughly half non-lead. "A large part of the market has already switched away from lead," says Scot Flynn, director of sales at Plombco Inc. "All of the North American OE manufacturers, and all of the afermarket national retailers use alternatives to lead." (Plombco ofers new Plasteel wheel weights.) Flynn says that fve years ago, the price of lead alternatives was substantially higher than lead. Today, the cost is close to even. In many cases, lead-free products are less expensive. But not everyone in the wheel weight industry is convinced a voluntary switch over will completely take place. "Unless the cost equation radically switches between lead and lead-free alternatives, it's going to take legislation," says Kevin Keefe, vice president of marketing at Hennessy Industries Inc. "At this point, legislation has ground to a halt at the state level. As an industry, we're stuck where we never wanted to be." Keefe says that because the market now is about 50% lead, 50% lead-free, wheel weight manufacturers have a new cost structure to deal with. Te current market requires them to tool one or two lead-free alternatives while maintaining lead wheel weight operations. Tat is starting to change. "We made the change to non-lead last year as a statement to the industry," says Daniel Molinari, product department manager at Wurth USA Inc. Molinari says consumers are making the switch to non-lead too, especially younger people. He also sees the switch taking place at repair facilities and with distributors and manufacturers. Is lead harder to recycle? "Because there are so many diferent (wheel weight) materials out in today's market, it is becoming harder for shops to be able to separate their wheel weights into lead and non-lead containers for recycling return," says Parker. "A lot of bullet casters will still buy used weights and sort them themselves, but some 'lead only' batery recyclers have claimed that they don't want the mixed media." "Where there was only lead, now we have a mixture of metals making it harder for the recycling sites to manage," says www.moderntiredealer.com As non-lead wheel weight alternatives such as steel and zinc become more common, tire dealers are seeing more and more mixed media in the wheel weight recycling stream. Molinari. "Batery recycling sites are becoming less responsive to receive wheel weights." Lead and steel have diferent melting points. If lead and steel weights are melted together, the lead melts frst, and recyclers can skim the steel out of the remelt. "But zinc and lead have fairly similar melting points, so you can't get the zinc out of the lead batch," says Keefe. "Te only thing you can do is add more lead to the batch to dilute it. Tat's a problem for the batery manufacturers because zinc can't be present in batery lead in any amount really more than 20 parts per million." However, Parker says the issue is not zinc versus lead or zinc versus steel. It is lead versus non-lead. "Tere just isn't as much lead in the market any more as there used to be — plain and simple," he says. "All OEMs are non-lead, most of your major, national tire retailers are nonlead, etc. So, today's typical shop has fve-gallon buckets of used wheel weights siting by the balancer that are likely half as full of lead as they used to be, with the other half being a mix of steel, zinc, plastics and composite materials." Parker believes that it is important for the market to know that lead-only batery recyclers are not the only scrap wheel weight buyers in the market. "Many scrap dealers all over the country are happy to accept mixed-media returns and they do it daily," says Parker. "Tese mixed media scrap dealers are able to separate the materials during the recycling process, unlike many lead-only recyclers. At Perfect Equipment, we ofer a program to the market that allows for mixed returns at no out-of-pocket expenses. It's hassle-free." 39