VALDOSTA, Ga. (WALB) - City of Valdosta and Lowndes County have partnered together to host a fall tire recycling event.
Proper disposal of old tires is important. Leaders say leaving old tires laying around is a fire hazard and poses a danger to public health and safety.
Recycling saves energy and natural resources. Since 2018, Lowndes County and the Valdosta Public Works Departments put together the event to help clean up their community.
“Lowndes County and the city of Valdosta noticed discarded items across county roads, roadways and ditches, and realized that we needed to implement a tire recycling event,” Lowndes County Public Information Officer, Meghan Barwick said.
If you’d like to donate tires, they must be regular car/truck tires and without the rim. If you don’t recycle your tires, they could end up illegally dumped costing the city or county thousands of dollars to remove.
“I think the environmental fee is between $5-$10 a tire. Another thing that no one really thinks about is mosquito control. A lot of times you have tires in the backyard behind your little storage building. They collect water and things like that and that’ll harbor mosquitoes,” City Public Works Superintendent Anthony Musgrove said.
County leaders say this is a part of a beautification project that goes on between the city and county throughout the year.
“Throughout the past few years, we’ve had over 5,000 tires recycled at any time. So it’s a huge event. It gets the tires off of our roadways and out of our rivers, which is super important,” Barwick said.
“It just kind of helps with the littering. Anyone that has tires that they would like to dispose of this is a great way for them to do it free,” Musgrove said.
County and city leaders are encouraging the community to participate in this tire recycling event. They can’t come to pick up these tires but you can drop them off free of charge at 1017 Myrtle street until October 14th.
