Gary and Marie Bricker regularly patrol their Orchidland neighborhood, cleaning up litter left along the side of the road.
Gary and Marie Bricker regularly patrol their Orchidland neighborhood, cleaning up litter left along the side of the road.
Residents of 39th Avenue in the Puna community, the married couple often finds tires along the dirt road, left behind by people too lazy or too strapped for cash to be troubled with recycling them.
But in the last couple of weeks, the Brickers found more tires than they know what to do with.
And that’s an especially troubling development, in light of the current dengue fever outbreak, Gary Bricker said.
“Since the outbreak began, (public health officials) have been telling people to get rid of tires in their yards, because they’re infamous for collecting standing water where mosquitoes breed,” he said Thursday. “But there’s only three sites where they can take them. Most places will charge you like $8 to recycle them.”
So, many people appear to be choosing to dump their problem tires along back roads, and all that’s doing is putting the community at risk for exposure to dengue, Bricker said.
“We’ve collected six tires in the last couple weeks,” he said. “We’ve been collecting these tires, and we have no place to take them.”
He added that with health officials identifying nearby Pahoa as a potential site of exposure, it’s disconcerting having that many tires sitting near his home.
“Definitely, it’s concerning to us,” he said. “People don’t realize, they’re not just spreading tires around. They’re spreading mosquitoes and possibly the fever. I don’t want these tires, and it’s going to cost me all kinds of money (to get rid of them).”
In a Thursday phone interview, Bobby Jean Leithead Todd, director of the county Department of Environmental Management, explained that prior to the outbreak, the county did not collect tires at all.
“They’re prohibited from going to the landfill,” she said.
But after health officials announced the dengue outbreak, Environmental Management began collecting tires at three locations — Waiea, Waiohinu and Ke‘ei — because of their proximity to Honaunau and Hookena, where most people appeared to have been exposed early on.
Now, however, as the outbreak persists, there is the possibility that other areas around the island could have infected mosquitoes as well.
“They (Civil Defense and the Department of Health) are in the process of deciding whether we are going to expand that service,” Leithead Todd said. “We’re waiting to hear from Civil Defense. It’s an evolving situation.”
In the meantime, she recommended that people either dispose of their tires at recycling centers or make sure to empty them of standing water and cover them to prevent water from collecting again.
She added that tires aren’t the only concern when it comes to standing water.
“If you have plants that collect water, you can take a solution of 1 gallon of water and 6 ounces of dish soap to create a soapy water spray for your plants, That affects the surface tension of the water and interrupts the breeding cycle of mosquitoes. … If you’ve got anything in your yard, like a sandbox for the kids or something, empty the water. You can consult the Department of Health for more information,” she said.
More info can be found at https://health.hawaii.gov/docd/dengue-outbreak-2015/.
Recycling services the Tribune-Herald spoke with on Thursday said they had not yet seen a marked increase in the number of tires people are bringing in.
More info on tire recycling can be found at www.hawaiizerowaste.org. Click on the “Recycle” tab at the top, and then click on “Automobiles and Tires.”
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.