The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) has announced a grant of $353,232 for the Mountain Goat Trail Alliance, funded through the state’s Tire Environmental Act Program. The Mountain Goat Trail Alliance, a community outdoor recreation project, will match this grant with $88,308 and use the funds to construct two sections of porous pavement trail using recycled scrap tires. The total project cost is $441,540 and aims to create ADA-compliant accessible pathways connecting the trail with the South Cumberland State Park Visitor Center and the Fiery Gizzard trailhead.
“The Tire Environmental Act Program provides ways to retrieve old tires and repurpose them into community assets,” said 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 two new trail sections will have a combined length of approximately 0.75 miles, recycling around 8,200 scrap tires in the process. The Mountain Goat Trail is a 35-mile multiuse, multimodal walking and cycling trail that runs through seven towns within Franklin and Grundy counties.
The Tire Environmental Act Program aims to fund projects that result in beneficial uses for waste tires. Eligible projects must 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 on the first retail sale of a new motor vehicle to be titled and registered in Tennessee, based on the number of the vehicle’s wheels. This fee supports the fund, which is allocated for projects that create or support beneficial end uses for waste tires.
Since its inception, the program has awarded nearly $9.2 million in grants. This has resulted 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 use in rubberized asphalt, tire-derived aggregate, tire-derived fuel, granulated rubber porous flexible pavement, and other beneficial end uses.
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Smith County Schools Receive Tire Program Grant
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) awarded a $313,906 grant to the Smith County Board of Education through the Tire Environmental Act Program to install rubber mulch from recycled tires on playgrounds and a picnic area across seven district schools, with the Board contributing $78,476 in matching funds.