Thousands of signs, tires dropped off at 2nd annual buyback event

Event held to reduce blight in Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Thousands of people traded in tires and illegal signs on Saturday for cash during the city's second annual tire and sign buyback event at EverBank Field.

City Council Bill Gulliford talked about the need for the event.

"Well we recognize that we have a serious problem. Anyone on the blight committee knows that we have a problem with tire just trash and litter all over the city," said Gulliford.

WJXT Channel 4 is a sponsor of the event.

People could trade in up to 10 tires at $2 per tire or up to 40 illegal signs for 50 cents a sign.  Real estate signs and active campaign signs were not accepted for cash.

"It's clutter and people leave them until they disintegrate and then it's just debris," said Bob Sarson, who dropped off signs and tires.

Peter Dobrey also dropped off signs and tires.

"Just to get rid of some tires that were laying around the neighborhood on the side of the roads, so you know just to kind of clean up the area a bit and it's a good thing because there's no place else to bring them," said Dobrey.

Mayor Alvin Brown joined the volunteers to unload trucks full of tires and put them in recycle bins.

"When they leave here they go with the companies taking them to be recycled.  It's the way we keep our city clean," said Brown.

Last spring the city collected more than 23,000 tires and 6,000 illegal signs.