Time to Re-tire: Overcoming Waste Tire Management Challenges in Baja California, Mexic

This thesis analyzes waste tire management policy in Baja California, Mexico's border region with the United States. Each year, state and local environmental authorities in Baja California must manage between 2.4 and 3.5 million waste tires, the majority of which are generated in the California-Baja California border region. To date, environmental authorities have struggled to manage the waste tire stream, formally recovering less than half of the waste tires generated annually in the state's five municipalities. Insufficient waste tire management, collection, and disposal continue to result in serious environmental, economic, and public health and safety risks. In an effort to mitigate the hazards associated with improper waste tire management and uneven regional development, this thesis addresses the current lack of waste tire policy analysis in the California-Baja California border region and considers the problem as binational, multi-dimensional, and multi-scalar. Two research questions guide the study: what systemic factors contribute to low waste tire recovery and landfill diversion rates in Baja California's border region with California; and, what policy strategies and tools ought to be utilized to overcome current waste tire management challenges in developing regions like the municipalities of Baja California. Adapting the theory of Integrated Sustainable Waste Management (ISWM) to the waste tire problematic, this thesis identifies five points of systemic conflict in Baja California's current waste tire management framework: management responsibility, used tire imports from California, collection, final disposition, and regional integration. This thesis proposes a model ISWM policy framework to overcome the systemic points of conflict that incorporates key policy strategies from waste tire management models in advanced industrialized countries such as public control, comprehensive responsibility in the tire life-cycle, and regional governance integration. Overall, this thesis supplements ongoing binational cooperation efforts and aims to assist government officials in the practical development of an integrated and sustainable waste tire management system in the California-Baja California border region.