Mountains of tires, appliances, electronics collected in 2019 by Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful affiliates — including Westmoreland Cleanways and other area environmental groups — announced Friday that it had collected more than 2 million pounds of electronics and other waste.

That includes more than 21,000 tires; 6,000 appliances, and 61,000 pounds of household hazardous waste from local residents in 2019.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful’s affiliate network offers annual special collections to eliminate illegal dumping and littering of tires and other hard-to-dispose items in local communities across the state.

“The special collections coordinated by our local affiliate network provide a convenient, low-cost option for disposing of tires, old appliances and electronics that seem to collect in people’s garages and basements,” said Shannon Reiter, president of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful in a statement.

Some of the collected trash is re-purposed: Tires are processed into rubber mulch, play turf, rubber asphalt roads and other items. The metal, plastic and glass are separated from the electronics and appliances and sold for reuse in metal rebar, glass aggregate and plastic cell phones, laptops and other equipment.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful affiliate groups’ collections are subsidized by the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Household and Small Business Hazardous Waste Collection program.

Contact your local county affiliate for more information about proper disposal of recyclable items by visiting the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful website.