It’s been one year since the Department of Health and Environmental Control started a campaign aimed to eliminate tire stockpiles. So how did the program do in its first year? DHEC reports they’ve collected more than 100 piles, equaling an estimated 40,000 waste tires.
The “See It, Report It” initiative, partnered with the PalmettoPride and S.C. Department of Natural Resources, focused on collecting discarded tires in South Carolina, whether it’s in rivers, forests or the side of the road, which can have public health and environmental risks.
“The campaign gives residents the opportunity to help take care of their communities, and they have responded,” said Juli Blalock, assistant chief of the Bureau of Land and Waste Management. “We often find out about tire piles before they have a chance to grow reducing the health and environmental risks as well as the time and expense in the removal of the pile.”
The waste tires are sent to recycling facilities and transformed into rubberized playground surfaces, landscape mulch, truck bed mats and plenty other reusable products.