Terrible Tommy Twotone held the summit . . . nobody could budge the 205-pound eighth grader. Finally, a six-pack of sixth graders rushed up the slippery slope and planted Tom in the snow drift still growing by the country school wall.
Well, Tommy was nowhere in sight at the Alliance Municipal Landfill last week though I’m sure he would have loved to be king of a 500-ton mountain of tires. The pile grew in just 24 hours as a range of vehicles and trailers crept along Kansas Street and through the gate to unload April 30 and May 1 during the Tire Amnesty collection.
Keep Alliance Beautiful in concert with the city of Alliance and Nebraska Department of Roads, who operated a loader and skid-steer, worked to promote and conduct the tire collection.
“The event was highly successful, we met the goal of 500 tons within 24 hours! Which probably lets us know we need to have another tire amnesty soon,” KAB Executive Director Kathy Worley said.
Landfill Supervisor Clint Fankhauser (commenting a week ago) said there were 203 loads on Friday and 39 by 9 a.m. Saturday when the threshold was met. He said the rehaul process was to begin this week with an estimated 42 truck loads necessary to relocate the pile. Tires from Alliance will end up at Julesburg, Colo., one of two plants operated by Brownell (Kan.)-based Resource Management Co., Inc., where the tires will be shredded and stored in silos before entering the recycling stream. The company’s key principal, Twylia Sekavec, said the specific market will be determined later. As with other recyclables, such as plastics, the reclaimed rubber is not as easy to move as it was a year or five years ago, she noted, speaking from a “grassroots” perspective. “The recycling market is really tough in all areas.”
Sekavec said the company has trucks moving tires five days a week within a service area that includes the western two-thirds of Nebraska and Kansas and the eastern portions of Wyoming and Colorado.
Asked whether another collection could be expected for 2022, Fankhauser replied that it would be more likely in 2023 since grant funding would be potentially awarded to other area communities, Chadron, Scottsbluff or Sidney, for example, that had not hosted the event for years.
The previous tire amnesty period came in 2014, before Fankhauser was in his current position, and yielded 425 tons of tires. He emphasized the recent event was a group effort at the City as he collaborated with Randy Waggener and Tarrah Johnson, co-interim city managers, Ross Grant, head of Public Works, and Kaytlin Norris, administrative secretary. The project “required a lot of paperwork to get the application process going,” Fankhauser said.
Scheduled for five days, significant demand shortened the process. However, Fankhauser oversaw his staff as well as four extra people from Public Works who helped things run smoothly, and allowed the landfill to operate as normal. He said people could still drop off their refuse, “but we really didn’t have anyone who wanted to wait in line.” KAB offered an alternative site for a couple residents who did not want to wait.
Most of the tires came from farms and ranches in Box Butte and Sheridan Counties. By waiting those who took advantage by spending up to 4-5 hours were able to save on the usual fees. Current rates are: $5.85 up to 16-inch, $9.49 over 16 inches and $18.79 a piece for semi-truck or tractor tires.
“Overall, it was pretty positive,” Fankhauser said. “People who missed the deadline were a little bit irritated, obviously. Next time, I would like to limit to single cars or pickups — for the littler guys — for a whole day.”