Contact: Michael Globetti, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902.

DNREC Scrap Tire Drop-off Day in Middletown nets over 18 tons of tires;
more than 10,000 tires recycled across state through six events to date

MIDDLETOWN (Aug. 11, 2011) – DNREC’s most recent Scrap Tire Drop-off event netted 18.30 tons of scrap tires – or almost 1,500 old passenger vehicle tires that could have ended up in an unsightly, mosquito-infested pile or left to take up valuable landfill space. The June 25 event at Delaware Department of Transportation’s Area 9 maintenance yard provided Delaware residents with the opportunity to recycle scrap tires free of charge and help reduce the environmental and health hazards of scrap tires in our communities. 

The six drop-off events sponsored by DNREC’s Division of Waste & Hazardous Substances over the last two years have collected more than 10,000 scrap tires. Residents from each of Delaware’s three counties have responded to DNREC’s recycling program by turning up with large numbers of their old tires for recycling.

Delaware’s Scrap Tire Management Program was created to eliminate large, unsightly scrap tire piles that can contribute to dangerous fires that produce toxic smoke and oily liquid runoff from melted tires that can pollute groundwater. In addition, tire piles provide ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which can carry the West Nile virus.

The Delaware Scrap Tire Management Program is funded by a state fee of $2 per tire on the sale of new tires. Enacted Jan. 1, 2007, the fee is diverted to the Scrap Tire Management Fund, a matching fund and program created to clean up existing scrap tire piles statewide.

For more information about  the program and future scrap tire drop-off events, visit DNREC’s website at www.awm.delaware.gov/Info/Pages/ScrapTire.aspx, or contact the Scrap Tire Management Program at 302-739-9403.

Vol. 41, No. 212