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HANOVER TWP. — An estimated 7,000 tires will be collected from Luzerne County residents Saturday, helping reduce both waste and disease in the area.
“It’s gonna be busy,” county recycling coordinator Beth DeNardi said.
DeNardi said this is the 14th year for the tire collection program, and so far almost 300,000 tires have been recycled in the county.
Saturday’s tire collection will take place 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Hanover Area Jr./Sr. High School in Hanover Township.
This collection is the second of the month, and DeNardi said around 5,000 tires have already been recycled. Residents who wish to recycle tires must first register by calling the Solid Waste Management office at 1-800-821-7654 between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Friday.
Regular-size car, light pickup truck, SUV, motorcycle, quad and farm tractor tires will be accepted, but all tires must be whole, cleaned and off the rim.
The purpose of the the collection is two-fold, DeNardi said.
“Tires don’t belong in a landfill,” she noted.
She said tires can be recycled and turned into other products, so the materials aren’t wasted. Those materials then need to be transformed by workers, helping with jobs and the economy.
“It’s like a domino effect,” she explained.
Recycling used tires also diminishes the potential spread of the West Nile virus. The virus is transmitted by mosquitoes, and they frequently breed in pools of water inside discarded tire piles. Just one such tire can produce over 1,000 mosquitoes, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.