svEPA
Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery
EPA 530-F-20-008
December 2020
www.epa.gov/rcra/nhsm
Fact Sheet on Non-Hazardous Secondary
Materials Determinations and Scrap Tires1
Overview	
Why does it matter whether scrap tires are a
solid waste or not?
•	Scrap tires that are solid waste must be
processed when combusted as fuel.
•	Scrap tires that are NOT solid waste can
be combusted as fuel without first being
processed.
What determines whether scrap tires are
solid waste or not?
•	Scrap tires that are discarded are solid
waste.
•	Scrap tires that remain within the control
of the generator and meet the legitimacy
criteria are NOT solid waste.
NHSM Scrap Tires	
The Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials
(NHSM) regulations found in title 40 of the
Code of Federal Regulations (40 CFR Part
241) identify which of such materials are
and are not solid wastes when combusted
as fuels.
Solid Waste? Or not?
Not Solid Waste: NHSM used as a fuel in
combustion units that remain within the
control of the generator and that meet the
legitimacy criteria are not solid wastes when
combusted as fuel.
The legitimacy criteria (40 CFR section
241.3(d)(1)) states that the NHSM must:
•	Be managed as a valuable commodity
•	Have a meaningful heating value and be
used as a fuel in a combustion unit that
recovers energy
•	Contain contaminants or groups of
contaminants at levels comparable to or
lower than traditional fuels that the
combustion unit is designed to burn
Solid Waste: Discarded NHSM that does
not remain within the control of the
generator is a solid waste.
However, fuel that results from the
processing of discarded NHSM that meets
the legitimacy criteria is not solid waste.
After processing, this fuel would be
considered a new product which has not
been discarded and therefore not a solid
waste. See Volume 76 of the Federal
Register (FR) page 15537.
Established Tire Collection
Programs
Scrap tires that are not discarded and
managed under an established tire
collection program are a categorical non-
waste fuel (40 CFR section 241.4(a)(1)).
These tires are considered non-waste
because they have not been discarded and
they meet the legitimacy criteria (76 FR
15534). Since such tires are not solid waste,
1 Disclaimer: The contents of this document do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any
way. This document is intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency
policies.

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they do not need to be processed when
combusted as fuel.
Abandoned Tires
Figure 1: Abandoned scrap tire pile
Abandoned tires (often found in abandoned
scrap tire piles) have been discarded and
do not remain within the control of the
generator, and thus do not meet the criteria
set forth in 40 CFR section 241.3(b)(1).
They are not being managed as a valuable
commodity and are solid waste. Even
though abandoned tires could be
beneficially reused whole as fuel, the
statutory definition of solid waste under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA) does not allow this, A discarded tire
does not lose its status as a waste solely
because it is burned for energy recovery (76
FR 15476).
Tire Processing
To receive non-waste status under NHSM,
40 CFR section 241.3(b)(4) requires
discarded tires to be processed and
transformed into a material that is
legitimately used as a fuel. This fuel is
called TDF (tire-derived fuel). Simply
shredding or quartering whole tires, or
removing some dirt, is not adequate to
produce a non-waste product for use as
fuel. To be considered sufficiently
processed, metal must be removed from the
abandoned scrap tires at the level of wire
removal that is specific to the handling
concerns and needs of a combustion unit.
Scrap tires that have been chipped or
shredded, sorted, and at least 90 percent
de-wired are generally considered
sufficiently processed (76 FR 15498).
However, this may not be the only standard,
to the extent that other unit types require
different size TDF and levels of metal
removal. In fact, cement kilns are a type of
combustion unit where less metal removal
from the scrap tires can still be considered
sufficiently processed. Cement kilns can
manage TDF with less metal removal
because kilns can utilize metal contained in
scrap tires as a component in their
manufacturing process. Metal removal as
low as 2-10 percent may be considered a
sufficient alternative when scrap tires are
burned in a cement kiln.2
Figure 2: Example of processed tires
2 EPA 2019, Beneficial Reuse of Scrap Tires as Tire Derived Fuel (TDF), Letter from Barnes Johnson, Director, Office of Resource
Conservation and Recovery, to Earl Lott, Director, Waste Permits Division, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, February 2,
2019, RCRA Online Number 14924.

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