Waste Tire Initiative

The Northwest Arkansas Waste Tire Initiative

Civil Engineering Projects Using Baled Tires

Currently, the District staff has helped establish at least one waste tire collection center in each of our six counties, with two centers in Baxter County.

Here is a list of Tire Collection Centers along with locations and contact information.

All tire retailers in these counties, as well as the general public, are encouraged to bring their waste tires to the collection centers, where they are loaded into semi-trailers. Each collection center does an initial count on the tires that are brought in, and initiates tracking paperwork.

When a trailer is full, a hauler contracted by the District is called. The hauler drops off an empty trailer, and hauls the filled one to the District’s single recycling facility. The recycling facility is known as DAMCO, a privately owned company located north of the City of Mountain Home in Baxter County.

At the permitted site near the DAMCO project area, the tires are baled into tight bundles of approximately 100 tires.

The bales of tires are reused as lightweight fill material in a water impoundment project. This is a progressive, ongoing project designed to create a multi-acre lake, with the tires being effectively reused as fill material on both the upwater and downwater sides of an impoundment to create what is called a “Compacted Clay Core Dam.”

The photo above shows how baled tires are typically laid out before covering to accomplish civil engineering projects such as dams and roads.

After the hauler bales the tires and properly places them for the construction project, DAMCO, under contract with the District, is responsible for covering the tires, backfilling, compacting, replanting, and other aspects of final dam construction.

The dam construction is still in progress, and will ultimately result in the creation of a 10 to15-acre lake, with far-reaching recreational and ecological benefits. This ingenious system of waste tire reuse is the first such project in Arkansas, and one of the only waste tire impoundments in the world.

There have been numerous other civil engineering projects in our District, including the construction of a building foundation for a restaurant, and the construction of a solid road through a marshy swamp area.

See how YOUR used tires helped turn this MARSHY WASTE

Into this TERRIFIC ROAD!

How many waste tires does this District generate?

Download

PowerPoint Baled Tire Presentation
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