If you haven’t yet seen the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review piece on the proposed Erie Renewable Energy plant, I suggest you check it out.

Emissions questions aside, it seems as though there is a bit of controversy over where the plant will actually get its tires.

According to the story:

[Caletta Renewable Energy] chief operating officer Victor] Gatto says he has agreements with partners who he won’t disclose to get the tires the plant will need. He said all the tires will come from within a 200-mile radius of Erie and be shipped in by truck and rail.

“We’re looking at Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo,” he said.

Not possible, say tire recyclers in those cities.

“It would be like saying they’re going to get them from the moon,” said Jeffrey Kendall, president of Liberty Tire Recycling, Downtown. The company recycles almost 25 percent of the nation’s scrap tires in 14 facilities nationwide, including Braddock.

Recyclers say no tires are going to waste — they’re being transformed into mulch for playgrounds, rubber tracks at high schools, new tires and supplemental fuel for coal-fired power plants and cement kilns. And it’s being done at a profit to the recyclers.

“Most of our customers are under long-term contract,” Kendall said. “They won’t be giving their tires to Erie Renewable.”