Pa. encourages new markets.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty has announced that the department is using the state's largest tire pile in Greenwood Township, Columbia County, to encourage new markets and innovative techniques that will help to promote the beneficial reuse of waste material and hasten cleanup at the 14-acre site.

To hasten the cleanup, DEP is seeking innovative approaches that demonstrate the ability to beneficially use scrap tires and to promote a sustainable market-based outlet for the remaining tires on site. Ideas ultimately should remove tires from the site while finding ways to manufacture consumer products or to consume the tires in lieu of other raw materials.

Projects should not require more than two years of funding. All the information received will be considered in the possible development of a grant program to fund innovative uses of scrap tires from the property.

In March, DEP finalized terms of a legal agreement with Max and Martha Starr, owners of the property where an estimated 6 million to 10 million scrap tires have accumulated since the early 1980s. Aside from a $400,000 civil penalty for failing to remove the tires from their property, the Starrs also had to relinquish operational control of the pile to DEP but maintain liability insurance. DEP already has contacted more than 40 businesses that sent tires to the property to request removal.