"It disgusts me," said Samir, an 11-year-old sixth-grader at the Gordon Parks Academy for Radio, Animation, Film and Television magnet school. "It's a problem"

Alexis McNeal, Samir's classmate says she is also angry and concerned. It seems that almost every empty lot, desolate street, industrial area cul-de-sac and municipal playground around has a discarded tire problem, Alexis said yesterday.

Alexis and Samir, with about 60 fellow fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders in the school's Quest gifted- and-talented program, came up with an idea to tackle the city's environmental pollution problem head-on. They are working with the East Orange Public Works Department on a pickup program.

That venture involves youngsters, such as Alexis and Samir, joining public works department staffers at least once a month, collecting discarded tires that mar the four-square-mile city's landscape.

The city also has contracted with the PermaLife Products, a rubber tire recycling firm, in Guttenberg, to pick up tires at a cost of $1.50 each rather than the $3.50-per-tire disposal cost East Orange had paid another firm. PermaLife transforms the accumulated rubber wheels into garden mulch, door mats and protective covering for municipal playgrounds.

The city plans to provide details of that new curbside pickup and recycling effort next week.

National research has shown that of the estimated 300 million tires illegally dumped across America every year, "only 30 percent of them get recycled," Samir said.

The problem is very evident in East Orange, he said. "Look around; there are so many (discarded tire) eyesores that pollute the environment."

The two pupils, along with student members of their school's award-winning Kids Witness News television team, got their first taste of what's in store for them.

They gathered this week at the city's Midland Avenue recycling center and met with public works department staffers. They stood around a pile of 300 tires public works crews had gathered from across the city in the past two months.

"Most of the stuff we accumulate here is the result of illegal dumping," Donald Wharton, the city's sanitation superintendent and recycling coordinator, said.

Unfortunately, people and businesses from communities outside East Orange dump tires in the city, especially in somewhat desolate, nonresidential locales. This creates visual and environmental nightmares, Wharton said.

"The scope of the problem is not just tires," he said. "It's the illegal dumping itself. It cost us (East Orange taxpayers) anywhere from $150,000 to $200,000 a year in dumping fees we have to pay and for the manpower used for the pickups of the stuff."

Illegal tire dumping has gotten worse since last year, when Essex County stopped allowing old tires to be picked up as bulk trash, he said.

After surveying that huge pile of tires, the youngsters, along with teachers David Baliban and Maria Johnson, traveled to a cul-de-sac on industrial Kearney Street.

The youngsters found eight recently discarded tires there, along with several giant black plastic bags of wooden cabinet remnants, moldings and wooden strips, also illegally dumped.

One tire at a time, the youngsters helped Wharton load the discards onto the back of a public works department truck, then tossed in three more tires found in front of two homes on North 17th Street.

"The kids are great," Wharton said. "They really are amazing."

For more information about East Orange's planned curbside tire pickups for city residents and businesses, or to report illegal dumping, call Wharton at (973) 266-5337.

Kevin C. Dilworth covers East Orange. He can be reached at kdil worth@starledger.com or (973) 392-4143
 

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