Talking trash : Officials say education is key to recycling success.
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/61669/
BENTON COUNTY —Recycling has been on the rise since the city began a new curbside recycling program at the beginning of the year.
At the end of April, the city released astonishing figures — that at the end of the first 20 weeks of the program, the city had collected 952 tons of recycling. In 2007, a total of 216 tons were collected. Residents are averaging 47 tons per week in recycling, said Jennifer Fagan, sales manager for Allied Waste, which runs the city’s recycling program.
“ I knew we would improve over the past performance but did not foresee the 1, 100 percent increase this first year will produce, ” Mayor Bob Mc-Caslin said.
Since the idea of recycling here is fairly new, it’s an ongoing educational process.
That’s one of the reasons Serina Wilkins, education coordinator for the Benton County Solid Waste District, heads to schools across the county to show students how to recycle properly.
Wilkins said that although soda cans don’t necessarily need to be rinsed out, they at least need to be poured out, and a rinse of water would help, too. “ It’s not always manageable in every situation, but all that liquid that’s left over is like nectar in a plant. Bees will come up and try to drink from the cans, and it gets messy, ” Wilkins said.
Other common contamination includes pizza left in boxes and mayonnaise and peanut butter jars that haven’t been cleaned out.
Bentonville Utility billing director Gary Wilson said that in spite of the city’s large increases in recycling, contamination still exists.
“ This time of year, people have started with the yard maintenance, and there is yard waste in some of the containers from time to time, ” Wilson said.
Bentonville residents who participate in the city’s curbside recycling and trash program may recycle cardboard, paper and plastic goods, but cannot put glass in the receptacles because the trucks used to pick up recyclables are not designed to handle glass.
Glass is currently accepted at the city’s compost facility at 2000 N. W. A St.
To remedy the situation, the city is looking to place glass-recycling bins in parks throughout the city.
Unlike the curbside program administered by Allied Waste, the bins for glass would be administered by the Benton County Solid Waste District, which already picks up recyclables throughout the city. The program is still in the preliminary stages.