Tire chips and tire chips-soil mixtures can be used as alternative fill material in many civil engineering applications. In this study, the potential benefits of using tire chips as lightweight material to improve the bearing capacity and the settlement behavior of sand slope was investigated experimentally. For this aim, a series of direct shear and model loading tests were conducted. In direct shear tests, the effect of contents of the tire chips on the shear strength parameters of sand was investigated. Different mixing ratios of 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% by volume were used and the optimum mixing ratio was obtained. Then, laboratory model tests were performed on a model strip footing on sand slope reinforced with randomly distributed tire chips. The loading tests were carried out on sand slope with relative density of 65% and the slope angle of $30^{circ}C$. In the loading tests the percentage of tire chips to sand was taken as same as in direct shear tests. The results indicated that at the same loading level the settlement of strip footing on sand-tire chips mixture was about 30% less than in the case of pure sand. Addition of tire chips to sand increases BCR (bearing capacity ratio) from 1.17 to 1.88 with respect to tire chips content. The maximum BCR is attained at tire chips content of 10%.