Most families have an old spare tire laying around that they can no longer use.

Cass County officials are asking that families bring those tires in for the annual free used passenger tire collection.

For the fifth year in a row, Cass County has been awarded a $3,000 grant from the Michigan department of environmental quality allowing them to collect used passenger and pick-up truck tires.

County officials want people to bring their used tires to the collection from 9 a.m. to noon on Aug. 5, at the Cass County Courthouse, 120 Broadway St. in Cassopolis.

Typically, the collection takes place at the fairgrounds, but as the Cass County Fair is taking place on the day of the collection, county officials had to move the site of the collection to the courthouse.

“We want to pick up people’s old tires that they’ve been storing for years, thinking they are going to do something with it, but they just sit there,” said Cass County Commissioner Robert Ziliak said. “I want to get them moved and get them out of the county.”

Some of Ziliak’s primary concerns with people leaving old, unused tires outdoors is that they tend to collect water, which can in turn attract mosquitos and the negative effect they have on the curb appeal of the county.

Because the collection usually has large turnouts, Ziliak said he has seen significant improvement with the curb appeal of the county in the years since the tire collection began.

“I know that personally, I can tell that I don’t see the tires laying on the sides of the road or behind barns nearly as much as what I used to,” he said.

Once the tires have been collected they will be donated to Deerpath Recycling in Dowagiac.

Deerpath will shred the tires into chips, making it so that when the chips are burned, they can become fuel that is used in factories. Once the tires are shredded, Deerpath will sell them to a customer who will use a special furnace burn them.

Taking the tires from the collection and shredding them is a service to the state of Michigan, said Deerpath Officer Manager Mandy Brandonisio.

As the company typically deals with much larger semi-truck tires tires, the passenger car tires collected by Cass County are so small, that the sale of the chips barely covers the cost of employee labor.

“A trailer full of car tires isn’t even a drop in the bucket,” Brandonisio said. “It’s literally pennies per pound.”

Both Brandonisio and Ziliak believe that the tire collection services a public need.

“It’s something that needs to get done,” Ziliak said.

Anyone looking to volunteer to help with the collection should arrive at the courthouse at 8:30 a.m. Aug. 5.