Partners
Round Up Tires, Tires, and More Tires
Before
laws were enacted to license tire recyclers, there were the unethical
few out there who would go to tire businesses and give them a quote
on taking their old and used tires from their business and supposedly,
recycle them properly. Unfortunately, what happened to some of these
large loads of tires was that they were dumped out somewhere off a seldom
traveled county road and dumped willy nilly right in the woods. Some
of these dumping areas were private land and some were gamelands or
Penn DOT maintenance pull-offs where gravel and other road tending materials
were stored.
I was escorted on
a tour of several of these dumping spots by Tom Stinedurf, a park ranger
with the Allegheny/Portage Railroad National Historic Site. We surveyed
three areas in Blair County where tires had been previously dumped.
One of the areas where tires and trash had been dumped was "Happy
Jacks" pull-off along old route 22 going up towards Cresson. The
other two areas were off a county road near to the Lemon House, one
was on State Gamelands and the other was a power line where tires were
scattered from top to bottom.
With the willing
aid of five different agencies we were able to coordinate a cleanup
of all three areas on the same day. Those involved with the cleanup
effort were; Penn DOT, The PA Game Commission, The Allegheny/Portage
Railroad National Historic Site, Blair County Solid Waste & Recycling
and prisoners from SCI Cresson. On October 16, a cold and very rainy
day, we all met at the Park Visitors Center parking lot and made a plan
for the day. We got started at 9:00 to go cleanup some tires. By 3:00
in the afternoon everyone was cold, wet and tired from loading tires
from the piles into loaders and from the loaders into a 45 foot long
tractor and trailer bed which Penn Turf set up for the cleanup.
The 45 foot long
trailer was filled from floor to ceiling and front to back with wet,
muddy tires of every style and type that is made. Somewhere between
1200 and 1400 tires were removed from these three areas and properly
recycled by the folks at Penn Turf. An additional 4.6 tons of trash
was removed from "Happy Jacks" pull-off area. Waste Management
allowed for free tipping fees of the waste when it was hauled to the
Southern Allegheny Transfer Station in Pinecroft by two Penn DOT trucks.
Penn Turf also charged reduced fees to deal with the tires.
It is always amazing
to me what some determined folks can accomplish when working together
for a common goal! Now that the state demands that tire recyclers or
tire handlers be licensed, we hope it will serve to eliminate this type
of negative, illegal behavior!
Article written
by David Thomas, former Executive Director of PA CleanWays of Blair
County
