Firestone’s 2008 “Get The Lead Out” wheel weight pollution reduction initiative has netted the company a Corporate Social Responsibility Award from the PR Newswire service.

Firestone Complete Auto Care and Firestone Racing each received an honorable mention.

In late 2007, parent company Bridgestone – which operates more than 2,000 service centers including the Firestone outlets, Tires Plus, ExpertTire and Wheel Works locations – became the first major automotive service provider to announce that it was moving away from using lead wheel weights.

The weights can fall off and may get thrown onto the edges of roadways, possibly contaminating soil or water if they are made of lead or another environmentally harmful material, according to Larry Magee, chairman, CEO and president of the Bridgestone Retail Operations division.

“Wheel weights may be very small, but considering the number of vehicles on the road, we saw that replacing these lead weights could have a positive effect on the environment,” Magee says.

In June of last year, Firestone Racing switched to using the 3M Wheel Weight system, a non-lead product that uses an adhesive to stick to wheels. The unit is the sole supplier of tires to both the IndyCar Series and the Firestone Indy Lights Series.

“This switch proved that non-lead wheel weights were of professional racing quality, ensuring non-lead products clearly would fulfill the requirements of everyday driving,” says Al Speyer, executive director of Bridgestone Firestone Motorsports.

The lead reduction efforts gained the attention and support of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which approached company officials about taking a leading role in the EPA’s new environmental coalition, the National Lead Free Wheel Weight Initiative. The program generated nationwide coverage from media outlets including the New York Times, USA Today, the Detroit Free Press, Bloomberg News and the Associated Press.

The Firestone outlets were also honored by the EPA at the agency’s WasteWise and National Partnership for Environmental Priorities (NPEP) conference for Bridgestone’s recycling efforts that resulted in more than 319,000 pounds of lead from wheel weights being recycled in 2007.