Adam Weitsman, president of Upstate Shredding in Owego,
N.Y., is contributing $10,000 annually over five years to
fund a Tioga County tire cleanup 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’s
solid waste manager.
“There’s been a noticeable decline in the number of tires
littering the county,” she reports. “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,” Pratt points
out.
“We have two scrap metal processing and recycling facilities
in Owego,” says Weitsman, “and our company is extremely
environmentally conscious at all our other operations. This
is one small way of telling the community that responsible
recycling benefits everyone.”
Prior to the donations, the county’s solid waste budget was
“stretched tight and there was little money to address the
nagging, unsightly and environmentally hazardous problem of
recovering and responsibly recycling used tires,” he
notes.
To comply with New York State’s Waste Tire Management and
Recycling Act, Tioga has had to ship its tires to a
certified recycler at a cost of more than $100 per
load.