The tire recycling program aims to reduce the number of discarded tires in the environment by providing a financial incentive to take them to the Groton Transfer Station to be recycled. People dropping tires off at the transfer station are charged a fee of four dollars per tire or eight dollars if the tire and a wheel are being dropped off together. This fee creates a disincentive for people to pick up tires they find in the environment and take them to the transfer station to be recycled.
Twice per year the Groton Sustainability Commission organizes a tire drop day where tires and tires with wheels can be dropped off at the transfer station for free. The events occur on random Saturdays and are advertised three weeks in advance in the local newspaper, on the Town of Groton’s web site and on social media. Random scheduling creates a sense of urgency in people to get their tires recycled that regular predictable scheduling does not.
Groton Sustainability Commission funds are used for advertising the tire drop events and for paying for recycling of the collected tires and wheels. Volunteers count, load and stack the collected tires into container and collect the names of the residents dropping them off. There is a limit of four tires per household per event. Tires are sent to FBS Recycling in Ayer, Massachusetts where they are sorted, stripped of steel and turned into crumb rubber or tire derived fuel.
