PUTNAM COUNTY — Clean Commission board members met recently with state, county and business representatives to try to focus on what is quickly becoming a problem in Putnam County — illegal tire dumping.
“It’s so sad because this is a beautiful place, and to see the tires on the side of the road, it just kills me,” Shannon Reese, Clean Commission board member, said.
The main problem seems to be the fact that it frequently costs more than people and some tire dealers are willing to pay to legally dispose of tires.
“The problem is multifaceted,” Reese said. “We need to educate people what to do with tires and why it’s important. We have to have a program that is not overly expensive for people to dispose of them. … If you have all these tires and you can’t afford to take them to the dump, you’re just going to leave them on your property or dump them illegally.”
Illegally dumped tires can pose a health hazard. When they collect rainwater, they become a breeding ground for disease-carrying mosquitos, and when they are stacked together there is potential for fire.
“I want to encourage the state of Tennessee and Putnam County to have incentives for people to use (the tires). There are so many uses,” Reese said.
Some of those uses include as ingredients in molded black plasticware, asphalt for roads, parking lots and driveways, landscaping material, in place of coal, backfill in construction, and in place of stone in septic lines.
Though there are more and more uses being found for shredded tires, the problem is that there are no local tire-shredding facilities. This is because that a great deal of money has to be spent upfront to set up the recycling facility before a state permit can be issued — and there is no guarantee that after it is set up that it will receive licensing. Plus there’s the expense of shredding the tires.
“You have to have a tremendous amount of tires coming in to shred so you can pay for this equipment, and also these big machines can do 10,000 tires a day. We don’t have that supply in the state of Tennessee,” Reese said.
According to Reese, Tennessee only produces about 5,000 a year that need to be disposed of — which is still a pollution problem, but not a large enough one to draw in a tire shredding company.
The Clean Commission meeting presented the issue, but as of yet, members have been unable to find a solution to the tire problem in Putnam County. Members are still researching and hope to meet again with more options to help make the community a cleaner and healthier place to live.
“I think we should start looking at other states and see how they’re managing the problem,” Reese said. “I think we need to keep it in the forefront. I think we need to keep talking about it. Eventually we’re going to figure this out.”
To keep updated on upcoming meetings or offer ideas to help control illegal tire dumping in Putnam County, call the Clean Commission at 931-537-3278 or email cleancommission@gmail.com.
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