Lancaster Tills Tire Crumbs Into New Softball Field

The city of Lancaster is constructing its newest softball field with crumbs. These are no ordinary crumbs, of course, but crumbs made from 10,000 tires that were once on the cars of Californians.

With the tilling of the tire crumbs into the outfield Tuesday, Lancaster became the first city in the state to use recycled tires in a sports field.

Los Angeles-based ATLOS Rubber Inc. creates the crumbs by shredding tires into chips about the size of pencil erasers. Either steel-belted or radial tires can be used, although ATLOS President Bob Winters said Lancaster’s crumbs were made just from radial tires since the process is cheaper.

“I think it’s got a lot of potential,” said Kent Kurtz, a Cal Poly Pomona horticulture/plant and soil science professor who for the next year will monitor the effects of the crumbs’ use in the ball field.

The city is constructing a second softball field using traditional soil additives next to the one with the tire crumbs to allow for comparison on such issues as water and fertilizer requirements of the fields. Both fields will be planted with the same type of grass.

Earlier research on the use of the tire chips in fields has shown that they require about 30% less water and fertilizer, Kurtz said. It is also believed that sports injuries are reduced 30% because of the resilience of the fields.

Lancaster is funding the experimental program with a $50,000 grant from the California Integrated Waste Management Board, said Ray Olson, the city’s recycling coordinator. It is one of three grants, with a combined value of $196,000, that the city received from the state board to use recycled tire products.

With the other grants, Olson said, the city will fund the manufacture of compost bins from tires and will also use asphalt sealant from recycled tires’ dust.

The results of the programs will be important, officials said, particularly because a law that took effect Jan. 1, 1993, prohibits whole tires from being buried in landfills. About 28 million scrap tires are generated in California each year.

Tire crumbs are often used in asphalt paving, said Thomas Lincoln, chief operating officer of Denver-based Jaitire Industries Inc.

“If it works as well as we anticipate,” said Lancaster spokeswoman Nancy Walker, “all our future fields will incorporate this.”