A few weeks ago I was coming home around midnight.  As I drove down the alley toward my garage, I came upon four old tires lying in seemingly random locations across the alley right in front of my garage. I stopped the car, rolled each of the tires, one by one,  to the side,  safely out of traffic’s way on the grassy aisle between my fence and the alley’s asphalt surface.

How those tires could have come to be there in the first place is probably a never-to-be-solved mystery.  Perhaps one of the many scrappers in the area lost them off the top of a too-full truck of found treasures? Was this a deliberate prank of some sort?  A “gift” from someone who heard of the Waymaking Cairn’s ongoing contemplation of our daily trash?

Whatever brought the tires to my alley will probably never be known, but I was presented the next day after an afternoon rain with an opportunity for the WayMaking Cairn to contemplate these tires where they lay since the night before when I moved them out of the way.

The Rubber Manufacturers Association says this about rubber tires: “Properly handled, scrap tires do not present any major environmental problems.

If improperly handled however, scrap tires can be a threat to the environment. Tires exposed to the elements can hold water and be a breeding space for mosquitoes that carry disease. Tire piles can be set on fire through arson or accident. These fires are difficult to put out, and produce heavy smoke and toxic run off to waterways. Tire piles can also harbor other vermin, such as rats and snakes.”

My neighbor Bev, after suggesting I might make wall-mounted planters with the tire, then called the city to take the tires away.