Pennsylvania
Waste Tire Program
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) runs a Waste Tire Program under the Waste Tire Recycling Act, Act 190 of 1996. The record a Phase I meets is DEP's priority enforcement lists of abandoned and commercial waste tire piles, which the Act requires and which take in sites in the Commonwealth with more than 10,000 waste tires.
In a Phase I ESA
ASTM E1527-21 does not name waste tire pile lists among its standard record sources. Its standard source for disposal sites is the state landfill and solid waste list, described on the landfills and solid waste page, and DEP's is on the Municipal Waste Landfills and Resource Recovery Facilities page.
DEP says waste tires present environmental, health and safety hazards, and that large tire piles can burn for weeks, with the rubber decomposing into oil that can pollute ground and surface water. A listed pile on or near a property is a reason to ask whether it ever burned.
- Only large piles are listed. A site with 10,000 tires or fewer is not one the lists cover. A property with no listing can still have held tires; look for them on the site visit and ask.
- Two lists, and only one can qualify a pile for state funding. DEP keeps one list of abandoned piles and one of commercial piles. A pile must be on the abandoned list to qualify for state funded cleanup.
- The list is old. The page read says it was updated January 24, 2018. DEP says the lists will be periodically updated to reflect reductions in the state's tire piles, and asks people to contact the regional office to find out a pile's current status. Treat a listing as a lead, and ask the region whether the pile was removed.
- Names and counts are loose. DEP notes that a pile may be known by several names, and that the number of tires given is an estimate, not an exact count. When identifying a pile, DEP asks for all available information on the site along with the listed name, such as the county, municipality, address, property owner and any location description.
- Storage sites have paperwork. The program's forms include a notice by waste tire storage site operators and an inspection form for waste tire storage facilities, and the program page lists the residual waste storage standards, 25 Pa. Code ยง 299.155-163, among its rules. At a property that stored tires, ask whether a notice or an inspection is on file.
What the record shows
Each list is a table giving the county, township, DEP region, pile type (abandoned or commercial), pile name and size, the size being DEP's estimate of the number of tires. DEP says the pile name links to further details in eFACTS. On the copy read, one of the twelve names carries no link, the abandoned list has two rows and the commercial list ten, and one row of the commercial table carries the abandoned pile type, so read the type column as well as the table's heading.
Where to look a site up
- DEP's List of Pennsylvania's Priority Waste Tire Piles page carries both tables. For more information it gives the Division of Municipal and Residual Waste at 717-787-7381.
- DEP's Waste Tire Program page links a document on completed waste tire pile cleanups, and annual reports for 2013 and 2014 on the restricted account for remediating used tire piles.
- For questions on waste tires, DEP gives 717-787-7381 and ra-epwaste@pa.gov.
Getting the file
DEP's waste management program is in all of its regional offices. DEP recommends its Environmental Site Assessment Search Tool or an Informal File Review, requested on a form and scheduled with the regional office, before a request under the Right-to-Know Law. The file review and the Right-to-Know request are on the Informal File Review and Right-to-Know requests page.
Sources
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection pages, read October 15, 2026, no modified date shown except where one is given:
- Waste Tire Program
- PA's Priority Waste Tire Piles, last updated January 24, 2018.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection pages, read October 1, 2026, no modified date shown: