Picture this scenario: You’ve been driving the same vehicle with the same tires for three or four years. The tires wear out. What do you do with them? Most of the time you won’t have a hard time getting rid of them because when you go to get new tires, you can just leave them at the tire store to be recycled.
But say you’re at home with no tire store in sight and you’re stuck with a tire (or four). You can just put the tires in your Curby cart, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. It’s against the law. Whole motor vehicle tires have been banned from landfills since 2004.
The good news is that there are other options available. You can recycle those tires by bringing them to our Disposal Center of Lansing. (If you’re not near the Disposal Center of Lansing, search online for other tire recycling options or visit the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality site for a list of tire recyclers.) Tire recycling yields useful products like gym mats, flooring, shoes and roofing material.
If tire recycling is just not convenient for you, get creative and try repurposing those tires. The obvious choices are planters or tire swings, but you can get a little crazier than that by making tire furniture, sandboxes or sculptures. Check online for ideas. The sky’s the limit!
The bottom line here: don’t trash those tires. Find a way to make tire waste into a resource and you can’t go wrong.
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