On Saturday, Keep Jackson County Beautiful and the Jackson County Solid Waste Department will be sponsoring a scrap tire collection day.

"We did this last year, and we collected around 1,600 scrap tires," said Susan Trepagnier, director of Keep Jackson County Beautiful. "We feel like there are at least that many more scrap tires out there now, so we decided to do it again."

Beside being an eyesore, old tires also can be a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which can carry the West Nile Virus.

Although Jackson County residents will be able to discard their tires for free on Saturday, they must be willing to provide some information at the collection site.

"We will need the participant’s address, phone number and name," Trepagnier said.

"That information is something that is required of us by the state. The Environmental Protection Division will come to check us out, and we have to make sure that there are no dealers discarding their tires."

Ordinarily, discarding tires at the transfer station would cost residents $3 to $5 per tire, but Saturday’s collection will be free thanks to state funding.

"We have a state grant from the scrap tire unit of the Georgia EPD that allows us to have the collection day," Trepagnier said. "We can only take 5 tires from each household, but we encourage people to participate this year because we understand that next year these grants won’t be available."

The scrap tire collection will be from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. Saturday, at the transfer station on County Farm Road in Jackson County.