The tire slicer belongs to the state’s mosquito program, and it will turn out up to 1,500 free sidewalls for dairy farms in Barre this month.

by Compass Vermont

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture will slice free tire sidewalls for farmers at this year’s Wheels for Warmth tire event in Barre at the end of October. The Agency expects to produce 1,000 to 1,500 sidewalls. Each tire yields two, so that’s 500 to 750 old tires put to work instead of thrown away.

The sidewalls go on silage bunks. Silage is chopped corn or grass that dairy farms pack down and ferment to feed cows through the winter. A bunk is the big three-sided concrete pit where the silage is stored. Farmers cover the pile with a plastic tarp and weigh the tarp down with old tires, which are heavy, plentiful and free.

Whole tires have a problem: they hold rainwater and mud. Standing water in a tire breeds mosquitoes all summer, including mosquitoes that can carry West Nile virus. That’s why the sidewall program is run out of the Agency’s mosquito program, not its dairy office.

A sidewall is the flat ring on either side of a tire. The Agency’s machine cuts both sidewalls off and leaves the tread, with its steel belts, to be disposed of separately. According to the Agency, sidewalls:

• don’t hold water, so mosquitoes can’t breed in them
• are much lighter than whole tires, especially tires full of water and mud
• can be stacked on a post and moved with a forklift when they’re not on the bunk
• can be overlapped where a farmer needs more weight, such as along the edges of the tarp

Because sidewalls are lighter, a farm needs more of them, spaced closer together. The Agency bought a machine called a Super Slicer that cuts about 100 sidewalls an hour. At that pace, this year’s Barre run is 10 to 15 hours of slicing.

Wheels for Warmth runs Oct. 29 to 31 this year. The event started in 2005 and does three things:

• It raises money for emergency heating assistance, which Vermont’s community action agencies hand out.
• It sells used tires to Vermonters in need at low prices, after DMV officials inspect them and judge them safe for at least one more season.
• It gives people a cheap way to get rid of old tires, so fewer of them end up in rivers or along roadsides.

Those river tires have a backstory. As Compass reported in September, Vermont is one of 14 states with no tire program, and H.204, a bill that would have made tire makers take back old tires, died in the House Environment Committee. The Agency’s slicer is a small piece of the problem, but it’s one of the few places where the state turns old tires into something useful.

Free sidewalls for your bunk

If you run a silage bunk and want to try sidewalls instead of whole tires, here’s what you need to know:

• Cost: Free, first come, first served.
• Trailer drop-off: Farmers who can leave a trailer onsite on Thursday, Oct. 29 get preference. The Agency loads sidewalls directly into trailers.
• Pickup: Saturday, Oct. 31. All sidewalls must be claimed by the end of the day.
• To reserve a spot: Contact Patti Casey at Patti.Casey@Vermont.gov or (802) 522-6858.
• Year-round program: The Agency also supplies sidewalls outside this event. Details are on the Agency’s sidewall page, or call or email Casey.