DURYEA – Senator David G. Argall (R-29) met with representatives from the Department of Environmental Protection and the Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee to tour a waste tire pile cleanup effort at Coxton Yards on Wednesday.
Sen. Argall sponsored the Waste Tire Recycling Act in 1996 after a scrap tire pile site caught on fire in Pottsville. Since then, over 31 million scrap tires have been cleaned up across Pennsylvania.
“Since this law took effect, approximately 95 percent of the scrap tires across the state have been cleaned up,” Argall said. “These scrap tires are being recycled and put to use in new ways, including tires and new roadways. The original location of the Pottsville fire now has a soccer field where my children played growing up. The goal is to clean up 100 percent of the scrap tires across Pennsylvania.”
Coxton Yards was the original site of a tire pile fire in 1991, which burned for three days.
Argall, through the Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee, plans on reviewing the information at an informative hearing in Harrisburg in the coming weeks to discuss future plans for scrap tire cleanup efforts.