Visitors to the Jim Blair Recreation Center now have a new place to relax, and it’s got a story to tell.
Four picnic tables and seven benches have been added around the grounds, but these aren’t your typical park fixtures. They’re made from recycled tires collected at statewide tire amnesty events, giving old rubber a brand-new purpose. Two of the picnic tables are handicap accessible, which complements the nearby handicap-accessible playground area.
Adair County Deputy Judge and Solid Waste Coordinator Bridget Compton said she’s impressed with how far recycling innovation has come.
“They can do some really cool stuff with it,” Compton said. “There’s one county that uses the tires for fuel for one of their utilities. And we even have a crumb rubber road right here in Adair County – it’s the one out by Green River Bait Shop.”
The new tables and benches were funded through a state grant program aimed at promoting the reuse of scrap tires collected during public events across Kentucky.
Compton isn’t stopping there. She hopes to secure future funding to incorporate the same material into the walking track at the Blair Center, a project she said she had to postpone this year because the county didn’t have the required 25 percent matching funds.
And because she wanted to make the project both fun and educational, Compton added a modern twist: QR codes.
Scan one of the codes on the tables or inside the recreation center, and you’ll be taken to a short video she created explaining how the program works – from collecting the tires to turning them into outdoor furniture.
“I thought it would be something fun for not only kids, but adults,” she said. “You scan the QR code and it takes you to a little educational video, just telling you about the grant and how they take the tires and form them into these picnic tables and benches.”
So, the next time you’re at the Jim Blair Center, take a seat, and maybe a moment to scan. You’ll find that even a park bench can tell a great recycling story.
