WASHINGTON (March 20, 2014) — Scrap tire recycling expert Michael Blumenthal, vice president of environment and resource recovery with the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA), will retire effective July 11.
A 24-year veteran of the RMA, Mr. Blumenthal has long been the tire industry's most visible spokesman on the subject of scrap tires and its greatest advocate of sustainable markets for recycled tires.
Mr. Blumenthal began with the Washington-based association in October 1990 as executive director of its Scrap Tire Management Council. Later, when the council was folded into the association, Mr. Blumenthal became an RMA vice president.
When Mr. Blumenthal first came to the RMA, the scrap tire recycling rate was only 11 percent annually, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that more than 1 billion scrap tires were stockpiled around the U.S., the RMA said.
Today, roughly 85 percent of the scrap tires generated annually find valuable end-uses, and the number of stockpiled scrap tires is slightly more than 100 million, it said.
During his tenure at the RMA, Mr. Blumenthal has coordinated nearly three dozen national and regional conferences on scrap tire management and spoken at more than 200 trade shows and conferences, according to the RMA.
Since 1995, he also has led the RMA's response to scrap tire issues along the U.S.-Mexico border, and was the signatory for the U.S. tire industry in a U.S.-Mexico accord on scrap tire abatement.