Gary Mayor Jerome Prince’s Administration is looking to a tire recycling contract to help the city stay on top of the truckloads of tires routinely dumped throughout the city.
Prince said despite the best efforts to clear dumped tires, offenders continue to dump tires in remote locations and abandoned properties such as the old PACE building at 43rd Avenue and Broadway. He described the site as a haven for dumped tires.
“It’s an ongoing problem. Like other aspects of dumping, tires seem to be breeding,” Prince said.
The mayor said he is frustrated the cash-strapped city has to commit so many financial resources to tackling the tire problem because so many people continue to illegally dump tires. He wants offenders to stop using the city as their personal dumping grounds. Those people and businesses that dump tires are transferring the cost they should be paying to recycle the tires to the city.
“Ultimately we bear the responsibility to clean up the city,” Prince said.
Prince said the contract with K&S Tire Recycling Inc. of Chicago Heights, Illinois, will help the city keep up with the steady flow of tires workers collect.
“We are actually exploring some sort of way to repurpose these things as well,” Prince said, adding the city needs to ultimately find a solution that keeps people from dumping.
Deputy Mayor Trent McCain said the mayor disposed of 14,000 tires that been cleared from lots and had collected on city property in April 2020. The recycling effort cost about $60,000.
“The Prince Administration will continue to clean up the city to the best of our ability. We will also aggressively go after illegal dumpers, both criminally and civilly, to recoup our costs through restitution or a civil judgment,” McCain said.
Raven Hall, deputy director of public works, said the city has been using K&S for recycling since it began extensive tire removal efforts last year. The company charges $1,400 for each trailer load of tires it removes. Two other recyclers who service the area were contacted for pricing LKQ Tire & Recycling — Chicago in Blue Island, Illinois, and Liberty Tire Recycling of North Liberty. LKQ’s quote was higher and Liberty declined to provide a quote, she said.
“This agreement allows us to keep the same price point fort the next 36 months,” Hall said.
K&S will drop off an empty trailer, as workers collect discarded tires from around the city they fill the trailer. Once the trailer is filled, K&S will pick it up and replace it with an empty one.
Hall said the city no longer stores overflow tires on its general services property after it was cleared in April 2020. Occasionally, there will be some overflow after large clean ups, but tires are taken for recycling as soon as the accumulate.
“We will continue like we have been collecting,” Hall said.
Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
