News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The State awarded the Warren County Solid Waste Department a $362,527 grant to purchase equipment to clear illegal tire dump sites.
The grant is through Tennessee’s Tire Environmental Act Program. Solid Waste Director Josh Roberts said receiving the grant was huge for the department as they currently have to remove sites by hand.
“We will be buying an excavator to handle the rubber and we’ve got a truck and trailer to haul the excavator,” Roberts said. “We will be mobile which we have never been in Warren County. We will be able to load the excavator up and go out into the county.”
Warren County will provide $90,632 as matching funds for the project. Roberts said repurposing waste tires is essential to creating more space at the landfill.
“They are not permitting any new landfills throughout the state of Tennessee,” Roberts said. “A lot of landfills are filling up and we need to be very cautious, and we need to get our diversion rates up and divert as much material as we can from the landfill.”
Roberts said taking in tires is a large part of the department’s workload as they take in over 700 tons per year.
“We should be able to up our tonnage after this grant has been awarded to us with the equipment,” Roberts said. “We are looking to shoot up to around 800 tons.”
Roberts said the county will send tires to a processor to make items such as rubber mulch. Roberts said cleaning up the illegal tire dump sites will reduce health risks for residents as tires hold water which attracts mosquitos.
