USTMA: 79% of US scrap tires reached end markets in 2025

Seventy-nine percent of U.S. passenger car and light truck end-of-life tires (ELTs) reached a non-landfill end market in 2025, matching the rate recorded in 2023, according to the United States Tire Manufacturers Association's (USTMA) 2025 End-of-Life Tire Market Report.

The Washington-based trade group says the figure means tires outperform paper, aluminum, glass and PET plastic on recycling rate — though the definition matters. Tire-derived fuel (TDF), an energy recovery application, remained the largest single market for ELTs last year, USTMA reports.

The numbers behind that 79 percent: more than 1.3 million tons of ELTs went to TDF in 2025, while roughly 1.2 million tons were granulated for crumb rubber applications. Takeaway: energy recovery, not material reuse, still carries the largest share of the stream.

Where did the fuel tonnage go?

Cement kilns dominated, consuming more than 820,000 tons — 62 percent of the national TDF market. USTMA attributes the sector's appetite to CO₂-reduction pressure in construction and TDF's "biogenic content," which it says makes the fuel attractive as an alternative.

Other TDF outlets shrank for reasons outside the tire industry's control. "Pulp and paper mill closures took that market down 40 percent and Michigan energy law changes cut utility boiler volume about 22 percent," the association states.

Crumb rubber is also under pressure on the materials side. USTMA says turf infill is losing share to cork, coconut husk and olive pit alternatives, while molded and extruded products have "pulled back from an unusually strong 2021 peak."

Why did exports jump 270 percent?

With domestic outlets contracting, ELT exports rose from 253,000 tons in 2023 to 936,000 tons in 2025 — a 270 percent increase. "Growth is led by a fast-expanding India market on top of steady fuel exports to other Asian markets like Japan and South Korea," USTMA reports.

The association isn't celebrating the shift unconditionally. "International demand further demonstrates that this material has real value, but our priority is domestic circular end use markets, because a tire processed here supports a U.S. recycler, U.S. jobs and U.S. infrastructure," says Amelia Chucholowski, USTMA's associate director of sustainability and recycling policy.

Supporting American end markets "includes ensuring that domestic processors have adequate feedstock," Chucholowski adds. "We're watching it closely and working with our global partners both to understand what's driving this trend and to report it transparently." USTMA is asking exporters to verify that destination markets are environmentally sound and economically viable.

How fast are stockpiles shrinking?

Stockpiled ELT volumes fell 12 percent between the start of 2024 and the end of 2025, landing at approximately 42.1 million tires, down from about 48 million in the 2023 count. That's a 96 percent reduction from a 1990 peak of up to 1 billion stockpiled tires.

Colorado's cleanup program drove the national decline, drawing down more than 12 million tires over two years. New Jersey and Pennsylvania cut inventories substantially, while North Carolina, Tennessee and Delaware have "fully resolved their stockpiles."

What develops the next market?

"This report gives a picture of a market in transition," says USTMA President and CEO Anne Forristall Luke. "Stockpile cleanup continues, and 79 percent of ELTs reached end use markets. At the same time, several domestic markets contracted, and the rise in exports shows strong demand for this material outside the U.S."

She concludes: "Together, those trends tell us our markets still depend on a handful of large industrial outlets and that market development has to be the priority. The data points to where the work is needed, and much of that work is already underway."

That work includes Tire Recycling Foundation-funded environmental product declarations (EPDs) for life cycle documentation in procurement, expanded chip seal applications and progress on the rubber-modified asphalt dry process.

Public money is moving too: Kentucky allocated more than $1.15 million from its Waste Tire Trust Fund in 2025 toward nine county RAP projects, and a Michigan RAP project won a national paving award. California made $6.57 million available for rubberized pavement grants in fiscal 2025-26, and Caltrans committed $9 million to repave State Route 39 with rubberized asphalt.

USTMA also flags pyrolysis as an emerging technology reaching scale that is "now measurable for the first time."

"Read this report as a snapshot of 2025," Chucholowski says. "What we're building now will be measured again in the future." The next biennial report is the milestone that will show whether the export surge and market development efforts translate into domestic capacity.