Recycling committee spotlights used tires

AUSTINTOWN -- Mahoning County's Materials Recovery Facility Committee has decided to focus its initial energies on recycling and reusing old tires.
The committee elected Robert Carcelli, president of Struthers City Council and a member of the Coalition of City Council Presidents, as its chairman, and James Fortune, president of Youngstown City Council and a coalition member, as its vice chairman.
The meeting was Tuesday at the county's Recycling and Reuse Division on Westchester Drive.
The MRF committee was formed in April to look at the feasibility of bringing a materials recovery facility and recycling training center to the Mahoning Valley, with a potential site along vacant steel mill property that runs between Youngstown and Lowellville.
But James Petuch, director of the county's Recycling and Reuse Division, said the committee will narrow its focus, for now, on making sure scrap tires are shredded and their byproducts recycled and reused.
Buckeye Tire Recycling and RRI of Ohio are two Youngstown companies now involved in shredding and recycling tires.