The Kosciusko County Solid Waste Management District discussed its goals for 2025 during a meeting on Tuesday.
KCSWMD Executive Director Tom Ganser said he would like to talk with County Highway Superintendent Steve Moriarty and city of Warsaw representatives about tire collection. Ganser told the board he wanted to help subsidize collecting tires for recycling, not necessarily start a program at the recycling depot.
"(Tires) take up a lot of volume if they end up in the landfill," said Ganser. "When you're us, and you're looking at reducing the volume in a landfill, and keeping the bad stuff out, that's one of the bad things."
Ganser said the county's highway department picks up tires if they find them in ditches.
Both Ganser and County Commissioner Cary Groninger noted there's a good private market for tire recycling, with tire shops in Kosciusko County allowing people to recycle old tires at their locations.
"When you do a (tire program) here, you're getting ready to park another semi somewhere, and then have to figure out a way of loading it," said Ganser. "You'll load out a truck like that every 60 to 90 days."
"Tires are one of those things where there's a pretty good private market to be able to handle that recycling," said Groninger. "I want to be cautious that government isn't somehow impacting a revenue stream or businesses that have already built the model to be able to help that. But I also don't want tires in the side ditches and woods and everything else because there's a cost to get rid of something."
Ganser told the board he would start conversations with various entities about tire recycling to determine the volume of tires that local shops are seeing with residential drop-off.
Groninger also asked about efforts to clean up trash alongside roadways and wondered where that trash ends up.
Ganser said the depot provides groups with gloves, vests and bags to pick up trash and recyclables during roadside clean-up events.
County Auditor Alyssa Schmucker noted she felt roadside clean-up wasn't as active as it used to be due to drug items being located in ditches.
"It got to be where youth organizations couldn't really do that anymore," said Schmucker.
The board also:
• Approved Bob Conley and Jerry Frush serving as the board's president and vice president for 2025.
• Learned the vacant education outreach and marketing coordinator position has been posted.
The board's next meeting is at 11 a.m. Feb. 11.