Old tires to put rubber under Island roads

Later this year P.E.I. will stop shipping old tires to Quebec for incineration and will instead chip themforroad building material.

Island Waste Management will pay a local company to take the 160,000 tires discarded in the province every year. H.I. Construction of Elmsdale in West Prince has bought a machine that shreds old tires into 15-centimetre pieces. Thosechunks can then be used to build the base of roads.

It's an idea already being used in New Brunswick.

"At St. Stephen they introduced about 1.6 million tires. They shredded and introduced that product into fill material into a road section that they actually then paved the road over," H.I. Construction general manager Scott Dawson told CBC News Wednesday.

On P.E.I. the plan is to try putting the shredded tires under clay roads rather than asphalt.

No monetary savings

Transportation Minister Ron MacKinley said using the tires won't save the province any money, but there are other benefits.

"We're going to get rid of our tires in an environment friendly way at the same cost as we're doing them now," said MacKinley.

"We're going to have an end product that's going to create a few jobs here in the province of P.E.I. And it's going to help the environment."

The tire chipper isn't running yet, but it's expected the tire chunks will be used for some road construction this summer.