The City of Emerald is doing its part to clean up the community and help the environment. This weekend, Nebraskans can take their old, unwanted tires to the Air Park Authority, where they will be collected and sent to Kansas for recycling.

This is the 8th year the Emerald Town Board has hosted the recycling event. The community expects to collect over 500 tons of tires this year.

"This is what Emerald does for the community and for the world we live in is to try to clean up these tires", said Becky Vandenberg, President of the Emerald Town Board. "It's not a good thing to have them here so if we can get rid of them and use them for something rather than bury them or burn them or just stack them in a ditch somewhere, then that's what we should do."

The old tires will be sent to Champlin Tire Recyclers in Concordia Kansas, where they will be recycled into playground equipment, park benches and crumb rubber for trails and landscaping.

Discarding unwanted tires is free of charge and the event will be going on until Sunday night around 8pm.