When saving the world with Tire Man, tires are important. Tire Man had mastered re-tiring for several decades. He whips out tire creations as naturally as most of us whip out credit cards. Yes, that quick. With far less collateral damage. I watched his DVD, saw his yard, embraced the new reality, and then returned to an old habit and pictured the process in my head. Where do you get the tires?
Surely a run to the dump was possible. Go pick up a few there. Dumps are cool in a way and it had been a long time since I spent any measurable time in the dump. They get my trash each week. I just don’t ask for visitation rights. Surely the dump has tires and sure those tires in the dump are used. We may be wasteful but we don’t throw away new tires. Do we? Let’s assume not. So the dump likely has tires and they likely are used. Do they charge for old tires? Are there other places used tires could be found?
What about on line? Craig’s magic list of everything people want and a few things they only suspect they want and a few other things they never even imagined. Are there tires for free on there? Maybe even other web sites. I could google it. Just being careful to google “Used Tires” and not “Used Rubber.” Surely there were free used tires around. Free was a big thing to me. This project had to be at least low cost and at best no cost. Buying my way to saving the world in my own back yard was like having sex to celebrate virginity. I spent my way into this whole consumption thing and had to dig out with what was available. Hopefully for free.
Maybe the place to start would be the local Tire stores or garages. There were several within just a few miles. I could just ask them for the old tires. “Tirecrafting” covers this and much more. I read it. Understood the steel of the steel belted tires should not be showing. Non-Steel belted tires are musts if you plan to cut the threads for a strawberry planter. Lots of other tips and essentials were right there in the book Tire Man illustrated and wrote all by himself. Still, seeing something in a book and actually doing it are different things. The harsh reality was that I had to actually go get tires and wanted to make sure I look as close to competent as possible. Wanted to be a heroic re-cycler rather that some bozo looking for old tires.
Did they keep the used tires around the back? Did I ask the manager? Thought about the process and imagined it to the best of my neophyte’s ability. Tire Man had a different approach. He said, “Great. Let’s go get you some tires.” A few minutes later, we were off in his truck. (As a side note, it had really nice tires on it.) My first outing as a real using what’s available and doing stuff that is good you and the world kinda person. Fittingly, I had no wallet and no cash on me. Welcome to the wonderful world of recycling and living free.
Tire Man had not to make a tire run for a while. He had a few ready for some projects in work or planned. He helped folks with their projects and put in gardens for many places and used the tires they got. Tire Man said the folks at the Tire Stores would likely not even remember him. He advised me to just mention the magic word. “Tomatoes”. Seems the folks at the Tire Store understood people used old tires for tomato planters. Eased the process.
Tire Man was wrong. Not about the Magic word. He was wrong that they would not remember him. As soon as he stepped out of the truck, one of the workers said, “Hi. Looking for some of the used tires again? We might have a few. Let’s take a look.”
Two big tires for the Composter from the first stop. None from the second. Seems the used tire pick up guy had just made his route. At both shops though, I witnessed first hand how happy and even helpful the folks were about seeing if they had used tires that would match our needs. Nice folks. Smart folks too. Seems we added to their bottom line by using the tires.
Look at your bill next time you buy tires. There is a fee attached to cover the disposal of your used tires. A couple of bucks, more or less. It is the money the used tire pick up guy charges to pick up the used tires and take then “away”. Of course, like most businesses, the Tire Shop marks it up a bit. Example: Customer pays two bucks disposal fee, used tire pick up guy charges a buck….and viola, Tire Shop makes a buck. When Tire Man and other everyday Super Human Heroes take the used tires for projects, the Tire Shop pockets the whole fee. Pretty cool…for them and the environment and lots of other stuff. As for the poor schmuck who paid two bucks to dispose of each of their used tires, they should read Tire Man’s book and have four really cool planters or a Composter and eight bucks in their kitty.
Happy Kitties aside, Tire Man and I headed back to his place with two of the four tires that would become the most user friendly Composter ever developed. How do I know it would be the most user friendly Composter ever developed? Tire Man said so right in his book “Tirecrafting”. Quick as a flash, we were back at his house and headed for Power Tools.
Tire Man took the saw, the right blade, cut off the sidewalks (that is the part of the tire other then the rubber that used to meet the road), and, quicker than a phone call from the IRS has your pucker up, we had half the Composter. Tire Man then took the sidewalls and, explaining to In-Wonder-boy (that would be me), screwed two of them together and made a hose holder. Less than an hour after Tire Man headed for his truck with me in tow, we had two hose holders and the bottom half of the Composter at the total cost of zero dollars.
Maybe this actually doing stuff is easier than I thought. Tire Man made it look so easy that I think even I could do it.
(If you are one of those that moves from reading to doing......get to Tirecrafting.com and get the stuff you need to do it.)
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