MOUNTAIN HOME - Mark Methvin, owner of Methvin Sanitation in Harrison, isn’t just a booster for recycling in the rural areas of Northwest Arkansas - he’s a true believer.
“I believe we live in the best part of the world,” Methvin said Thursday at a meeting of the Arkansas Marketing Board for Recyclables in Mountain Home. “I see more opportunity here than I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Methvin was one of two presenters invited to the quarterly meeting, which began Wednesday with a tour of the BassCat boat factory in Mountain Home. The board typically meets in a different area of the state every three months and communicates with local civic and business leaders about ongoing recycling efforts.
“A lot of your older people years ago saw recycling as a necessity,” Methvin said. “But now, my generation, it was cheaper to throw it away and don’t worry about it costing you an extra two or three dollars. But I think we’re starting to see people come back to that. There’s tremendous interest in green.”
Methvin said his business, which began in Harrison 26 years ago and provides trash-hauling services to portions of Baxter, Marion, Boone, Newton, Searcy and Carroll counties, is trying to expand the amount of recyclables it collects throughout the the region.
Methvin said his company hauls about 135 tons of garbage per day, compared with about 1,750 tons of recyclable material collected throughout all of fiscal 2012.
Although Methvin Sanitation already provides curbside recycling services in Mountain Home and Harrison, along with its drive-thru recycling facility in Harrison, Methvin said he hopes to increase the amount of recyclable materials from “C&D,” or construction and demolition, his facilities can process.
Processing discarded asphalt shingles from roofing projects is a primary goal, Methvin said.
“There’s still a lot of shingles that are being taken to a holler somewhere, in all of our counties, because that’s the closest and the cheapest and the easiest way to get rid of those,” Methvin said. “There’s still cost in recycling them, but it’s going to be much less than landfilling them. And it’s the right thing to do.”
Methvin said his operationtook in about 156 tons of shingles last year.
Teresa Bechtel, marketing manager for the Solid Waste Management Division of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said the shingles are ideal candidates for recycling because their essential component, asphalt, can be harvested and repurposed for road construction.
According to data supplied by Bechtel, Arkansas recyclers recovered about 8,500 tons of shingles in 2012. Bechtel’s report also listed recovered construction materials including more than 91,000 tons of asphalt, more than 132,000 tons of road material and more than 108,000 tons of wood waste in 2012.
Methvin said his operation currently transports shingles to a facility in Hollister, Mo., where he pays $5 per ton to dump them. The facility, run by Journagan Construction & Aggregates, then repurposes asphalt from the shingles into road-building materials.
Methvin said it might be beneficial to the area if a vendor bought a shingle grinder, which can remove extraneous debris including nails while harvesting the asphalt, but that neither Methvin Sanitation nor any other area enterprise would likely be able to purchase its own grinder, which costs about $400,000.
“You’ve got to have a certain volume to justify a grinder,” Methvin said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 08/16/2013