RTG, Ford contribute to new athletic fields

QUEENS, N.Y. (Nov. 13)—Ford Motor Co. and Recovery Technologies Inc. contributed the crumb rubber for two athletic fields at a new, $2.5 million sports complex at Flushing Memorial Park in Queens. Each field—a football-soccer field and a softball field—was made with 300,000 pounds of crumb from 25,000 scrap tires, and represents state-of-the-art technology for artificial turf, according to Ford and RTG. Take the Field, a charitable organization devoted to renovating outdoor athletic facilities in New York City's five boroughs, was in charge of creating the new sports complex, and Queens Borough President Helen Mitchell contributed $500,000 to the project. RTG has ongoing contracts with Ford and with a number of individual Ford and Lincoln-Mercury dealers to recycle their scrap tires. To date the Guttenberg, N.J, recycling firm has crumbed more than 8 million tires from the auto maker and its dealers.