The New Franklin City Park will soon feature new picnic tables and benches made entirely from recycled materials, thanks to a state grant that aims to turn discarded tires and plastic into long-lasting products for Missouri communities.

The City of Fayette also received 38 tables, six wheel-chair accessible tables, and six benches to be spread across Paige-Liberty and the City Park, and D.C. Rogers Lake. The grant, with no cost to the city, is worth $52,000.

The project is funded through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Solid Waste Management Program, which administers scrap tire material grants that help pay for products made from scrap tires generated in Missouri. The grants are supported in part by a fee added to every new tire purchase in the state, a charge dedicated to cleaning up and reusing waste tires rather than sending them to landfills.

The grant will provide New Franklin with 16 picnic tables and nine benches constructed from approximately 389 scrap tires and 94,421 plastic milk jugs.

Missouri’s scrap tire programs and other solid waste initiatives are designed to encourage communities to reduce what they throw away, reuse materials when possible, and recycle what remains, turning potential trash into useful products such as playground surfaces, landscaping mulch, picnic tables, and park benches, according to the Missouri DNR.

The project is 100 percent refundable. The only expenses to the City of New Franklin will be installation, which will be handled through the city services department and park board volunteers.