Toledo receives $100,000 grant from the Ohio EPA for tire collection

The city of Toledo will contribute a $25,000 local match to a $100,000 grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to collect unwanted tires.

The city has applied and received similar grants for the last couple of years, said Megan Robson, director of Toledo’s public service department.

“We have used these dollars for our Clean Toledo Recycling events, specifically for tire collection,” she said.

There are 13 Clean Toledo Recycling events scheduled throughout the city this year. Residents can drop off tires and other unwanted items at the locations for free. The grant funds pay the contractor to recycle the tires.

“It results in quite a significant expense to our contractor, who recycles them properly, which we plan to do again this year,” said Ms. Robson.

New this year is the department’s block-by-block program to help residents who want to dispose of tires and other items but are unable to attend a Clean Toledo Recycling Event.

” With these funds this year, we’ve been doing the block-by-block collection of tires as well. We’ve been taking a significant number of tires throughout the neighborhoods and making sure they are being recycled properly,” she said.

City council voted to accept the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency grant at a meeting on Wednesday.

Some members of council at an agenda review meeting last week said they were pleased to hear about the grant.

“I’m really excited about this,” Councilman Nick Komives said. “Tires are often responsible for a lot of mosquitoes we get bit by throughout the summer. I’m really grateful we will continue to collect tires. I was grateful to hear the sanitary district no longer just treats the water in the tires, they actually collect them. So there is a number of people who collect tires throughout our community.”

He asked Ms. Robson about the status of some surveillance cameras the city purchased a couple of years ago to monitor illegal dumping of tires.

Ms. Robson said some of the cameras are still in place. The police department monitors them.

“Our blight team often knows where those public dump sites are. We try to make sure we monitor the sites regularly and find alternative methods in how we’re collecting those tires,” she said. “An example of that is our block-by-block program. It’s just a different means to make sure we’re out there, to make sure we’re present, that we’re collecting things, we’re making ourselves accessible. I think that’s important to have a resource in place that keeps people from just throwing the tires in an alley.”

Because of how the city applied for the grant, the funds can only be used to collect tires.

“In future years, we can definitely expand the scope of our application,” she said. “We’re going to continue to look for grant opportunities to help with these programs. We definitely see the benefit.”

Councilman Theresa Morris said she had a lot of tires in her district and thanked the department for the block-by-block program.

“Point Place always shows up in numbers. What we thought would take one day to pick up tires in the block-by-block program took three days,” Ms. Morris said.

She asked if residents are charged a fee for tire collection services.

“We do ask for a donation of 50 cents per tire,” Ms. Robson said. “We are required to ask for that as part of the grant. However, we will never turn people away. We collected over 250 tons of tires at the Clean Toledo Recycling events last year, and we collected $2,190 in fees. Some people will pay, especially those businesses that show up with a truck full of tires. We do ask them for that 50 cent fee.”

Councilman Theresa Gadus asked if the department is keeping count of how many tires are collected in the block-by-block program.

“Yes. In Point Place, we’ve had a great amount of participation,” Ms. Robson said. “What we thought would take just one day spilled over to the next day, with seven or eight piles we had to finish off the next day, which is great. That’s the point of what we’re trying to do.”

In the first week of the block-by-block program, 19 tires were collected in East Toledo, 108 tires in the Vistula/North River neighborhood, and 230 tires in Point Place.

At the 2021 Clean Toledo Recycling events, the city collected a total of 207 tons, which increased to 225 tons in 2022, followed by 254 tons in 2023.

To see the full schedule of the block-by-block program and Clean Toledo Recycling events, go to https://toledo.oh.gov/residents/neighborhoods/trash-recycling/block-by-block.