Tire Recycling Effort Receives Donation from Upstate Shredding

Upstate Shredding, Owego, N.Y., has reported that Adam Weitsman, president of the company, is making a $10,000-per-year, five-year donation to New York State’s Tioga County to help it upgrade its tire clean-up and recycling program.

“I have to give Adam credit—he’s donating this money to clean up these tires, and he gets very little from it aside from beautifying the county,” says Ellen Pratt, Tioga County’s solid waste manager. “There’s been a noticeable decline in the number of tires littering the county. We used to see it all the time, but now we only see it occasionally. I used to have residents call and let me know about abandoned tires, but now I’m not getting those calls,” she adds.

“We have two scrap metal processing and recycling facilities in Owego (N.Y.), and our company is extremely environmentally conscious at all our other operations,” says Weitsman. “This is one small way of telling the community that responsible recycling benefits everyone.”

Prior to the donation, the county shipped its tires to a recycler at a cost of more than $100 per load, according to an Upstate Shredding release.

Under the Upstate-sponsored program, Tioga County is holding free, three-times-per-year tire drop-off events, each lasting from three days to one week in Owego, Barton, Candor, Spencer and Tioga. “In the towns that have participated, it has been really successful,” says Pratt. “They are enthusiastic about cleaning up their old tires. So far, we have cleaned up over 250 tons of tires. Upstate’s donation covers the cost of disposal.”