Tire Recycling Event

Part of my day today was spent getting rid of some old tires I've had hanging around for quite a while. They're a little hard to get rid of. You can't just throw them away, and the alternative of sneakin' 'em onto some tire shop's 'old tire pile' in the middle of the night ain't worth the hassle. Some guys just load up their pickups and dump 'em out in the woods next to the old refrigerators. On my worst day, I wouldn't do that.

Today, my county sponsored a 'tire recycling day' with a government grant. Good use of tax money in my opinion. It solved my little problem in an environmentally sound way.

I ended up taking in 3 bike tires and an old set of wore-out truck tires. The truck tires were under my house. My house is built on a slope, and I can stand up in the front of my 'crawl space' if I'm careful to stand between the floor joists. I've left skin on every one of the damn things over the years, so I always wear a hat to cushion the inevitable blow.

The tires were in the back of the crawl space where I can't stand up. They've been under there since I was young, dumb, and flexible enough to put 'em there without hurting myself. Gettin' 'em out, I hurt myself. Not bad, just a sore back.

Anyway, this event was pretty professional. It was held in the parking lot of the City Hall/Po-leece officer Station/Mrs. G's workplace. It's a little ways off the state highway, and there was extensive signage. They musta thought ahead of time where they were going to put the signs, 'cuz they had 'Tire Recycling Event' with ↑, ←, →, even ↓ for folks who went past it!

They had a big trailer and a gang of guys with county employee shirts on, but I suspect some of the guys were county jail inmates. I didn't ask, but I've gone on little outings like that in my younger days. Believe me, they're welcome respites! There were signs saying "Stop here" and "Stay in your vehicle". They probably didn't want any liability if you trunked yourself on their turf. The guys swarmed the pickup and hauled out the tires, but I had to get out anyway because the guys couldn't figure out how to latch my fiberglass bed cover.

There were prizes too! We got two nice green "Nevada County Recycles" tire pressure gauges and the biggest blue recycling bags I've ever seen. We recycle almost everything around here in blue bags, and I get 33gal. ones. These were 55gal. at least! If I filled one of those, I'd hurt myself gettin' it to the curb fer sure! I was a little disappointed that there wasn't no hot dogs & soda, or a band, but that's the breaks.

Recycling counts. We recycle everything we possibly can, and it's at least double actual trash by volume. As our end of the county grows, landfill space becomes scarce, and over the last coupla years we've reduced landfill usage by 50% or more. Our county 'dump' is a private company, and has a raft of folks, Mexican ladies mostly, who sort every piece of trash that comes in. Using blue bags makes their job easier.

If ya wanta check out our recycling programs, go to Nevada County Recycles. While you're there you can navigate all over the county. Have fun!