The Garland County Landfill has opted out as a collection point for used tires and won't accept them after Aug. 16, the county's director of environmental services said Wednesday.
Director Paul Thompson said disposal will be limited to one of the five tire retailers approved to collect used tires in Garland County. Those sites store the tires in trailers, which the rubber company that's contracted to process the tires hauls to its facility in Little Rock.
Thompson said equipment issues with Davis Rubber Co. prevented it from hauling off tire trailers at the landfill, leading to an overflow. Some tires had to be stored on the ground, with rain causing an accumulation of mud that Davis Rubber said would damage its processing equipment, Thompson said.
"We don't have a concrete pad, and we're not set up to handle as many tires as we've been handling," Thompson said. "We decided the best thing for us to do was to bail out as a collection site."
Thompson estimated more than 1,000 tires were at the landfill, creating the overflow after two collection trailers and two containers reached capacity. State law prohibits approved collection sites from storing more than 3,000 used tires.
Stacy Edwards, waste tire coordinator for the Pulaski Inter-District Waste Tire District, said the landfill has collected more than 5,000 tires this year. It's one of three designated as a collection site in the nine-county district covering central Arkansas. Edwards said the county's six collection sites have received about 57,000 used tires since January.
She said district regulations prohibit landfills from holding waste tires. Only portions the processor can't repurpose for other uses are approved for landfill disposal. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality administers grant funds the state's 10 waste districts use for tire disposal and requires collectors, haulers and processors to keep a manifest charting the progression from collection to disposal, Edwards said.
The Arkansas Waste Tire Fee levied on the sale of new motor vehicle tires supports the grant fund. Edwards said the fee isn't assessed on tires sold for ATVs, lawnmowers and farming and logging equipment. The district's grant agreement with ADEQ requires it to collect a fee for disposing of those tires.
Edwards said retailers are more suited to tire collection, noting that they volunteer out of a spirit of public service. All but three of the districts 29 collection sites are tire retailers, she said.
"With the landfill personnel doing this and no revenue attached to it, I understand why (the county) opted out," she said. "Tire stores handle tires all day and do all the documentation. It's more a matter of routine business for them."
She said Davis Rubber Co. processes more than 700,000 tires a year, turning about 75 percent of them into a replacement fuel paper mills can use in place of coal. The other tires are recycled as mulch and playground equipment, products more in line with the goal of recycling all the state's used tires into environmentally friendly products with useful applications.
The county's five approved tire collection sites are as follows:
• Arkansas Tire, 126 Golf Links Road.
• Jensen Tire, 3941 Highway 7 north.
• Albert Pike Tire, 100 Albert Pike Road.
• Hot Springs Tire and Auto, 3123 Albert Pike Road.
• Ace Discount Tire and Auto Repair, 423 Highway 7 north.
Local on 07/24/2014