Hard Times: Cash For Old Tires


Would you pick up old tires and haul them away for 50 cents apiece?

The city of Memphis and Shelby County hope so. A plan will be presented next week that puts a 50-cent bounty on old tires taken to the Shelby County Recycling Facility. It also cracks down on used-tire haulers who illegally dump hundreds of them at a time after picking through the ones they can resell.

The intent is laudable — beautification, blight removal, a little economic stimulus, and a small, potentially useful thing at a time when governments are strapped to do big things. But the economics are so brutal they could make can hunting or journalism seem attractive.

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