>>ANNOUNCER: More than 800 people with one mission...
promoting a healthy environment.
We are the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
>>KATHY COSCO: Managing the state's waste stream is a complex process --
from litter control to recycling to landfill management,
there plenty of things for city and county solid waste authorities to keep
track of...
Teaching the latest best practices plus an opportunity to network with dozens of
experts in the field was what brought waste managers from across the state to Wheeling
recently for this year's educational conference on litter control and solid waste
management.
Sessions included dealing with hazardous household waste, litter control issues,
and how the DEP'S REAP program can help with grants for litter control,
recycling and electronics collections, as well as cleanup projects for illegal dumps
and volunteer recruitment.
Individuals and businesses aren't the only ones working to reduce the costs of
waste disposal and their impact to the planet through recycling,
the u_s_ military has gotten into the recycling business too --
right here west virginia.
The DEP's Greg Adolfson joins us
now with the details.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Thanks, Kathy...
The west virginia army national guard tire rebuild facility here in Kanawha
City is an example of a project that is saving taxpayers millions of dollars and
bringing jobs here to west virginia.
Workers at the facility take cars like these from military vehicles and rebuild
and refurbish them.
The tires arrive from u_s_ military bases all across the country and the world.
They're unloaded,
deflated and dismounted...
The rims are cleaned and sandblasted and new hardware and new tires are installed.
And as you might image, the military goes through a lot of tires...
>>RYAN POWERS: Depending on the maintenance schedule of the piece of equipment,
for tires to be replaced humvees to different styles of
trucks and different
automotive equipment, depending on the usage and the weight of that vehicle,
some tires last three, four, five thousand miles. Some tires last longer than that -
someone upwards of ten thousand, fifteen thousand, twenty thousand range
depending on the environment that they were used in
the load of the equipment on it and the terrain.
>>NARRATION: The tire shop has produced more than 11-thousand wheel assemblies so far this
fiscal year.
The shop generates about one hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds of
recyclable material each month.
Worn tires can be retread and reused on farming and logging equipment.
Tires that are too far gone to recap get shredded in used for things like
playground paving and other recycled rubber products.
>>JAMES HOYER: We utilize national guardsmen
retirees and veterans
as our work force,
so this program takes federal dollars
and it creates an opportunity for men and women to live and raise their
families in west virginia,
do part of a broader national mission set...
It gives the opportunity for veterans coming home or guard members or their
family members to have employment opportunities
all the while saving the
united states military and the united states government money because our overhead
and operating costs are lower
and they've workforce in the efficiencies that we create...
>>NARRATION: and that includes some home grown West Virginia ingenuity.
>>POWERS: We have a run flat removal and and installation machine
that members of the WV Army National Guard in our CSMS national
located in Eleanord, West Virginia
had designed and built --
for us to buy one of these off the federal system is around fifty to seventy thousand dollars.
We put our heads together. This is built locally by the National Guard here
in west virginia saving the taxpayer lots of money.
Roughly we built this machine that we're going to show you here for roughly about eight
thousand dollars.
>>HOYER: We have got to be more efficient
in the way we do business
for national defense and homeland security.
This is a great example of how pushing things back down
to the lower state-level to the National Guard
level you can save money and create jobs for men and women who serve
the nation or their family members. My folks have developed a process
that in
the coming -- the current fiscal year that we're in
is gonna recycle over two point one million pounds
of tires
that I know now is not going to go into a landfill
so across the spectrum from the broader national defense mission to the
basic things we got to do
to protect the environment
this is doing it.
We're doing in West Virginia. The processes were developed here.
The innovation is here
and saving the money is here and its putting our people to work.
>>NARRATION: It's hard to say were these tires will end up --
an army base in Texas or a dirt road in Afghanistan,
but wherever they end up, Sgt. Powers say one thing is certain...
>>POWERS: If I'm in that vehicle somewhere next year wherever it is in the world, world
if i'm on one of these tire produced here in West Virginia, I know it's a good safe quality product
and something we're proud of here in WV.
>>GREG ADOLFSON: Each rebuilt tire assembly saves the federal government over eight hundred dollars
compared to the cost of replacing it with new.
So far, Kathy, that's saving taxpayers over seven million dollars. In Kanawha City,
I'm Greg Adolfson for Environment Matters. >>KATHY COSCO: Thanks, Greg...
west virginia engineering students helped design the facility is part of a
paid internship
also one of the two recycling contractors that handle the tires
removed at the facility
is located right here west virginia.
Coming up: >>RANDY HUFFMAN: I see honorable people trying to do the right things for
the right reasons and I'm really proud of that...
>>KATHY COSCO: We continue our conversation with DEP Cabinet secretary Randy Huffman. 108