The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) has announced a grant of $146,521 for the Binghampton Development Corporation from the state’s Tire Environmental Act Program. The Binghampton Development Corporation will provide matching funds of $75,479 and utilize the grant to install bike lane barriers along roads in three Memphis communities using recycled scrap tires. The total project cost is $222,000, and the organization will collaborate with the City of Memphis to offer a sustainable, low-cost solution to enhance the safety of the city’s bicyclists.
“The Tire Environmental Act Program provides ways to retrieve old tires and repurpose them into community assets,” stated TDEC Deputy Commissioner Greg Young. “These grants help make that happen, and we look forward to the results that come from this process.”
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The initiative will cover a combined six miles of roadways and will use approximately 2,200 scrap tires. These projects follow a successful pilot in 2022, where Binghampton Development Corporation developed and installed a prototype lane barrier along a 1.2-mile section of Broad Avenue in Memphis.
The Tire Environmental Act Program aims to fund projects that utilize waste tires beneficially. Eligible projects fall into one of three categories: tire processing/recycling, tire-derived material use, or research and development. The program offers grant funding to local governments, non-profit organizations, higher education institutions, K-12 schools, and for-profit businesses.
Tennessee established the Tire Environmental Fund in 2015. A flat fee is assessed based on the number of a vehicle’s wheels upon the first retail sale of a new motor vehicle to be titled and registered in Tennessee. This fee supports projects that create or sustain beneficial end uses for waste tires.
Since the fund’s inception, almost $9.2 million has been awarded to grantees, resulting in the diversion of approximately 7.6 million tires, or nearly 82,000 tons of scrap tires, from landfills. These tires have been repurposed for uses such as rubberized asphalt, tire-derived aggregate, tire-derived fuel, granulated rubber porous flexible pavement, and other applications that prevent tires from ending up in landfills.
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Tims Ford State Park Trails Upgrade
Tims Ford State Park has received a $217,060 grant from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation‘s Tire Environmental Act Program, supplemented by $54,265 in matching funds, to create ADA-compliant trails using recycled scrap tires.