When you buy new tires, do you ever wonder where the old set goes? Many shops pay someone to dispose of them properly, but a few haulers don’t. So when that old rubber hits the roadside — or somewhere else — it forces unsuspecting property owners to mount a cleanup.

“Hopefully, someone will get caught doing this so business owners like us don’t have to deal with it," Clark Sission said.

6 On Your Side found illegally dumped tires in southwest Omaha and off 90th and Dodge. Complaints are piling up in North Omaha.

“We get a trend or a pattern, we’ll have our special ops unit go down, believe it or not, and hang a camera and hope to catch these guys,” said Capt. Mark Matuza, commander at the Omaha Police Department's northeast precinct.

It would also save the city money since it often cleans up vacant property. The city also paid a tire recycler more than $6,000 last year.

But in the ongoing battle against illegal tire dumping, OPD has scored one victory: A police surveillance camera captured photos of a pickup hauling tires on a vacant lot. Officers later located the vehicle and driver.

“He’s got tires again," Matuza said. "So I said, 'Lets read him his rights, and see what he says.' And he admitted to two other dumpings, and from there (we) charged him.”

The hauler would have been charged $5 per tire to properly recycle them. Instead, he illegally dumped several like these and pocketed the fees that shops paid him to dispose of old tires the right way.

The city prosecutor said the tire hauler pled guilty to illegal dumping and received a $25 fine.