The abandoned Fraser River junkyard in Richmond can be one of the places benefitting from a five-year partnership to clean up scrap tires.
Tire Stewardship BC announced on Thursday that it is giving Richmond-based Ocean Legacy Foundation an annual grant of $30,000 for five years to fund scrap tire clean-up expeditions across the province.
Scrap tires collected from the expeditions will then be processed and repurposed in the province.
Rosemary Sutton, Tire Stewardship BC executive director, said foam-filled tires used to end up in landfills before Ocean Legacy stepped in.
“Ocean Legacy Foundation is the only organization that accepts foam-filled tires from beach cleanups and dock deconstructions. They remove the foam from the tires and then we’re able to recycle them,” she said.
Tires are one of the most common finds at the former landfill along the Fraser River between No. 6 and 8 Roads. The state of the riverside junkyard is being documented by local artist Steve LaRocca on his Twitter account @FraserRiverFind.
After the Richmond News first reported on the issue in 2021, the City of Richmond finally confirmed this year that action is being taken to address the decades of trash emerging from the site.
A representative for Tire Stewardship BC and Ocean Legacy Foundation told the News that while they hope to work on the Richmond riverside junkyard as part of their partnership, they are unable to confirm at this point.
In a previous interview with the News, Sutton said the clean-up would depend on the City of Richmond's environmental assessment of the area.
