American City & County, April 1994 v109 n5 p 42(2) Tired of dumping, Broward County cleans up. (Florida, scrap tire program) John Price. Brief Summary: Broward County, FL, instituted a multi-faceted scrap tire recycling program in 1988 that has disposed of over one million tires. The state funds its Waste Tire Solid Waste Grant by collecting $1 for each new tire sold. The program consists of a tire processing center at landfills and at county trash transfer stations, and private collection services. Full Text: COPYRIGHT Communication Channels Inc. 1994 Since late 1988, Broward County, Fla., has used a multi-faceted scrap tire management program to remove and properly dispose of more than one million scrap tires dumped in swales, public rights-of-way, vacant lots, environmentally-sensitive lands and undeveloped private property. This flexible, cooperative management matrix with particular emphasis on local control has successfully removed concentrations from as small as one tire to 240,000. A predominantly urban area of 1.2 million on the east coast of South Florida with 28 cities and several unincorporated areas, Broward County has funded its scrap tire management efforts through the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Waste Tire Solid Waste Grant. This money comes from a $1 fee collected for each new tire sold in Florida. About 45 percent of each dollar is allocated to counties by DEP as a reimbursable grant in rough proportion to population for county-designed, state-approved programs. Since October 1988, Broward County has expended $2,410,531 in grant funds to develop scrap tire collection, processing and disposal infrastructure, resulting in the removal of nearly one million scrap tires. Initially, the county used the funds to establish a processing center at the county-owned and operated land fill and drop-off centers for residential use at county trash transfer stations. These facilities complement existing private collection services and processing centers that primarily serve the business community. The initial three tire drop-off centers expanded to nine over a three-year period. An additional six centers are operated by municipalities at their public works facilities or trash transfer stations. With locations in all quadrants of the county, these centers are available to all county residents to drop off up to four tires at a time. At first, cleanup of large scrap tire dumps was contracted to a private vendor, but, after one cleanup, the county decided to use in-house removal strategies, which proved to be quicker, cheaper and more adaptable. The cleanup of a 240,000-tire dump located in the flight path of a major international airport, for example, combined the resources of federal and state regulatory agencies, county solid waste, public works and law enforcement agencies. A fire at this tire dump, which was abandoned by a tire recycler, could have severely hampered the airport's flight operations. The solid waste department coordinated the project using public works equipment and inmate labor, which reduced the removal costs from $1.14 per tire for the private vendor to $1.04 and tripled the removal speed from about 5,600 to 15,000 tires per day. Developing a Plan Since 1989, the county has encouraged municipalities to participate as subgrantees. Program plans are developed by the municipality in response to its particular scrap tire management needs and are evaluated and funded by county solid waste staff under state grant guidelines. The county's staff has developed regular communication links with both municipal and state players to assess program status, head off problems and suggest new ideas. Among the funded activities are drop-off center operation, in-house and contracted private vendor removal operations, removal equipment purchases, disposal costs and code enforcement operations. Eleven of the 28 cities in Broward County have participated. Enforcement A major problem in the removal and disposal of scrap tires is the lack of staff resources for enforcement. Deerfield Beach hired a code enforcement officer, and Hollywood hired a neighborhood improvement officer as part of their subgrant in 1992. In addition to removing small piles of tires from swales, rights-of-way, etc., both officers quickly identified several larger concentrations of illegally-dumped tires on private property. The waste tire officers also identify business scrap tire generators in their jurisdictions and explain their disposal responsibilities. Developing Markets With location and removal of dumped scrap tires comprehensively addressed, the next step is to reduce dumping. Along with law and code enforcement activities, the identification and stimulation of accessible and competitively priced scrap tire markets should prove to be an element of the long-term management solution. Currently, most scrap tires in Broward County are burned for energy retrieval in the two waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities in the county. Up to 3 percent of the tires in the municipal solid waste WTE feedstock is permitted by the state without WTE air permit modification. Other reuses of scrap tires are currently in place or planned. Private generators and collectors cull some scrap tires for resale as used tires or recapping before final disposal of the balance. A smaller number are chipped at the private landfill for use in cell construction. In 1993, an artificial reef made of concrete/tire chip pyramids was placed off the coast of Broward County. The placement and ongoing multi-year study of this reef are funded through the Waste Tire Grant. In addition, Broward County is funding a comprehensive study of scrap tire generation, collection, transport and disposal/recycling within the county and the region. Article A14986840