Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control says more than 750,000 scrap tires are generated each year in the First State.
DNREC Division of Waste and Hazardous Substances planner Tara Grazier says they come from several places, including both regular tire changes and farm maintenance.
“Farmers usually have a stockpile of tires from way back in the day. They use them to hold down the tarp on their silage pits, or use them for various farming activities,” said Grazier. “Most people aren’t using them anymore, and they’ve moved more to sidewalls, which is great because it doesn’t accumulate mosquitos.”
Scrap tires often hold standing water, which is an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes that transmit diseases like the West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis. They can also harbor pests such as mice and snakes.
When burned, tires can pollute the air, soil, surface water, and groundwater.
DNREC’s Scrap Tire Management Fund is designed to help remove these tires easier.
Grazier says the fund helps alleviate some of the financial burden.
“We go out to the site, we make sure they qualify for the fund, and then we go through the process. There’s a couple of different options. They can do self-cleanup, or we can have a contractor that we have contractors go out and clean the tires up, and then the property owner is billed whatever the cost is for that cleanup,” she explained.
Property owners will be reimbursed the full or a partial amount of the cost for removal. Money in the fund comes from the purchase of new tires. There is a $2 fee for every tire bought in the state.
And for property owners who find themselves dealing with illegally dumped tires, there’s a program to help with that.
Illegally dumped scrap tires, along with other kinds of illegal dumping, can be reported to DNREC’s 24-hour environmental complaint hotline at 1-800-662-8802.
More info can be found at de.gov/ScrapTires.
