The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) has announced a grant of $217,060 for Tims Ford State Park through the state’s Tire Environmental Act Program. This funding will be supplemented by matching funds of $54,265 from the park, bringing the total project cost to $271,325. The grant will be utilized to install three porous pavement trails using recycled scrap tires.
These new trails, which will be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), are part of Tennessee State Parks’ Access 2030 initiative aimed at making the park system the most accessible in the nation. Greg Young, TDEC Deputy Commissioner, emphasized the significance of the Tire Environmental Act Program, stating, “The Tire Environmental Act Program provides ways to retrieve old tires and repurpose them into community assets. These grants help make that happen, and we look forward to the results that come from this process.”
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The project will create trails with a combined length exceeding 0.5 miles, recycling approximately 6,420 scrap tires. These trails will improve access to key areas of the park, such as the beachfront and marina, enhancing outdoor recreational opportunities for residents of Franklin and surrounding counties.
The Tire Environmental Act Program aims to fund projects that repurpose waste tires into beneficial community assets. 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 a variety of entities, including local governments, non-profit organizations, higher education institutions, K-12 schools, and for-profit businesses.
Established in 2015, the Tire Environmental Fund collects fees from the first retail sale of new motor vehicles based on the number of wheels. These fees are used to support projects that provide beneficial end uses for waste tires. Since its inception, the program has awarded nearly $9.2 million in grants, diverting approximately 7.6 million tires, or nearly 82,000 tons of scrap tires, from landfills. These tires have been repurposed for various uses, including rubberized asphalt, tire-derived aggregate, tire-derived fuel, and granulated rubber porous flexible pavement.
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