ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Youngstown to get recycling facility for tires

A Mentor company would help train people how to recycle tire byproducts.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A minority-owned company plans to open a tire-shredding/recycling facility here early next year, and negotiations are under way to also establish a national tire recycling training center.
The management team of RRI of Ohio Inc. announced the venture Wednesday at the Wick Building.
Mark Lewis, company president, said RRI plans to open March 1 at 1165 Brittain St.
He said a minimum of 15 to 20 jobs will be created the first year, paying between $8 and $9 an hour.
Lewis said the scrap-tire business is always a threat because of hazardous materials. Also, mosquitoes present a health problem because they often breed in water that collects in old tires.
RRI will help relieve the hazardous waste dangers by shredding the tires and recycling their byproducts. The company would be around for a while because every year millions of tires need to be recycled and shredded, he said.
Money
The company's initial investment is $759,000 in private funding and $60,000 in public financing through the city's Office of Economic Development.
Company co-partners are Alonzo Burney, vice president and legal counsel, Edward Page and Kenneth Fair. All are from the Pittsburgh area.
Page and Fair, former General Motors Corp. employees, are skilled in plant management and securing the necessary equipment for the operation.
Lewis thanked William M. Carter, executive director of the Youngstown Area Development Corp., the city's economic development department; the Coalition of City Council Presidents; Pressley Gillespie of Sky Bank; and Alvin Hopkins, local certified public accountant, for "their valuable assistance" in getting key contacts made, red tape cut and financing for building renovations.
The Coalition of City Council Presidents -- James E. Fortune of Youngstown, Robert D. Carcelli of Struthers and Robert P. Yankle of Campbell -- was formed to help spur economic development along the Mahoning River corridor, which goes through the three cities along Poland Avenue.
Fortune first met with Lewis in 2003 when Fortune was the city's 6th Ward councilman. Lewis said he was looking for a suitable site to open a tire recycling business and had looked at a facility on Jones Street. Fortune said he saw Lewis' business interest as a "tremendous opportunity for more economic growth" and contacted Carter.
"Jobs bring in income to our cities, and we're pleased to know that jobs are on the way," Fortune said.
Carter particularly thanked Sky Bank, which "stepped up to the plate" to help provide funding for RRI in the form of a Small Business Administration loan of $629,000.
Tied in with RRI is a plan to establish a national scrap tire recycling training center here.
Triad Chemicals of Mentor sent a letter to the COCCP offering to provide training for people seeking to be technicians in the pollution abatement field.
Triad will teach the technicians how to salvage chemical compounds from the shredded tires that can be used to produce useful products in demand in other industries.
Page said a steel producer in Pittsburgh could use residue from recycled tire products to help coke burn hotter, which helps in the steelmaking process.
Negotiations continue with Triad, and COCCP will approach state and federal entities for funding, Carter said.
Carcelli said the training center would open opportunities to create warehousing and distribution jobs to move those byproducts. Revenue would come from fees charged to those entities that bring tires here to be shredded and recycled, he added.
Yankle said the big picture for future economic development projects such as RRI is breaking down the barriers between smaller cities, like Campbell and Struthers, with a larger city such as Youngstown.
"We have to remember that as Youngstown goes, so go the smaller cities," Yankle added.