Hundreds of tires were taken to several spots across the Rio Grande Valley as part of the “Road to Recycling- Tire Disposal” event on Saturday morning that collected the tires delivered by the community to later take them to the landfill where they will get recycled.
The event, which took place simultaneously at more than five places throughout the county, was in partnership with several cities across the county and the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council. According to workers who were collecting tires at the Gonzalez Park the tires are taken to the landfill where they get recycled and are later used for things such as to pave the streets and playgrounds.
Brownsville City Commissioner Nurith Galonsky attended the event and said she has been collecting the tires she sees on the streets and taking them to the spot so they can get recycled, making the community safer by preventing the collection of water inside tires during this hurricane season.
“ Unfortunately, people love to dump tires and it’s very unfortunate, because a lot of times people love to dump tires in other people’s property and then the trash collection service does not collect that trash. If someone dumps it among branches, the trash collection service will not pick it up,” she said.
“ So, it’s good to have these events so we can get rid of the tires, especially now that hurricane season is starting, we have seen that tires store water from the rain inside, so it attracts mosquitoes and they carry diseases.”
Galonsky said these events should happen more often so the community has more opportunities to dispose of their tires correctly and help the environment by recycling them. She said tires can also be taken to the city dump.
“ If you take them to the city dump there might be a fee but the good thing about that is that they can recycle them, so they extract a lot of the materials that contaminate the environment,” she said.
The commissioner continued on the City of Brownsville’s initiative do to quarterly clean ups that also pick up tires. She said the community just has to get informed on to when and where the clean ups take place
“ That’s a good opportunity to get rid of tires that someone dumped, you just need to know when those clean ups are going to be and usually you just have to deliver them to the spot where they have the containers,” she said.
