Kentucky Reports 77.4% Waste Tire Recycling Rate and Growing Ground Rubber Market
Tire Recycling Rate
Kentucky recovered and recycled 77.4% of its waste tires in fiscal year 2025, keeping the state close to the most recent US national average even as its end-use markets shifted.
A System Built on the Waste Tire Trust Fund
The state’s Waste Tire Trust Fund underpins the program, paying for collection events, county grants, crumb rubber and tire-derived product grants, rubber-modified asphalt projects and dump-site remediation. The program traces back to a tire fee first established in 1990, later raised from $1 to $2 in 2018.
Ground Rubber Becomes the Leading Market
Mulch and ground rubber were Kentucky’s largest waste tire market in 2025 at 29.5% of the total, used for landscape mulch, playground cushioning, synthetic turf infill and rubber-modified asphalt. State officials regard ground rubber as a higher-value outlet than tire-derived fuel because it carries more of the tire’s material properties into new products.
Tire-Derived Fuel Faces Market Pressure
Tire-derived fuel still accounted for 25.1% of the market, but regulators warned it is squeezed by reduced solid-fuel use, low-cost natural gas and changes in manufacturing and energy markets. Other outlets included resale at 5.9%, civil engineering at 1.4% and byproducts at 15.5%.
Diversification Keeps Recovery High
The report argues that continued market development is essential to hold recovery rates up, pointing to tire-derived aggregate for highway and civil engineering uses as one path. Ground rubber production has grown from essentially zero in 1998 to 1.7 million passenger tire equivalents in 2025, a sign of maturing domestic demand.
Learn More:
Capture More Value From Every Tire
Recovery rates are only half the story; the real prize is converting scrap tires into high-value recovered products.
Klean Industries engineers pyrolysis plants that turn waste tires into recovered carbon black and oil instead of low-value fuel or disposal.
Want to move your waste tires up the value chain?
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