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# Kicking the tires
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/kicking-the-tires/
- Published: 2026-11-10T00:22:34.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-10T00:22:34.000Z
- Description: A Baton Rouge resident's plan to rid the parish of dumped tires gets a hearing at the Metro Council.
- Author: Mukul Verma
- Tags: News, Governing, Fixer

For years, Parry Matt Thomas has hauled discarded tires out of East Baton Rouge Parish while advocating for his plan to curb illegal dumping. Tomorrow, the Metro Council is expected to take the first step toward a resolution that would put local government behind his proposed solution.

**Why it matters:** Dumped tires are part of the blight Mayor-President Sid Edwards has promised to clear from the parish. The council's backing would give Thomas' idea more weight with state lawmakers, who would have to make it law.

**The problem:** Tire buyers already pay a $2.25 per-tire fee to cover recycling. Thomas tells *RedEye* some retailers keep the money and dump the tires instead of taking them to a recycling center. Resellers are the worst offenders.

**Thomas' fix:** Add a disposal fee and a matching refundable deposit to every tire at the wholesale level. Wholesalers would pass the costs to retailers, and retailers would pass them to the people buying tires.

When a used tire is returned, the state would:

- Pay an authorized recycler the disposal fee.
- Refund the deposit to the person or business that brought the tire in.

**In effect,** the cost of recycling would be built into the price of every tire, and every used tire would carry a bounty. A tire left on an abandoned lot would stop being trash and become cash for whoever turns it in.

**What the resolution does:** It recognizes Thomas' work and lays out his plan. It also asks a Louisiana Senate committee to consider legislation and to consult government agencies, tire businesses, recyclers, environmental groups and community representatives.

**What it doesn't do:** It doesn't create the program. The council is offering its support and asking state lawmakers to study the idea and, perhaps, enact it.

**The bigger picture:** Thomas is one of a handful of Baton Rouge residents who grew frustrated waiting on government and took matters into their own hands. Marie Constantin and Jennifer Richardson are both working to clean up the parish. Jenni Peters and Misti and Brumby Broussard pushed the Perkins Overpass project forward.

**The bottom line:** Dumped tires pile up worst in the parish's poorer neighborhoods. Resellers collect the recycling fee there and quietly leave the tires on abandoned properties. 

Local government lacks the resources to keep up, and sometimes it doesn't have the authority to go onto private property. Thomas' plan may or may not work. But it's a step toward fixing an environmental problem and toward no longer looking the other way when that problem lands where less well-off people live.