A state agency will pay $134,063 -- about 10.5 percent of its budget -- this fiscal year as its first contribution to a 2-year-old recycling incentives program for households in Pulaski County eligible for curbside recycling.
The program's 20.8 percent participation rate and a perceived lack of engagement by local businesses are topics of recent discussion among the Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District -- also known as the Pulaski County Regional Solid Waste Management District -- and its board of directors, which is not happy with the program.
"When you have a [curbside recycling] market that has an 80 percent household participation and only 20 percent of the total households are participating in the program, then you wonder if this is a good program," district Executive Director John Roberts said.
The program is Recyclebank, run by a New York-based company of the same name. Recyclebank provides rewards to people who have signed up on its website to receive them based on the weight of materials people on their pick-up route recycle. While points are accumulated for routes, rewards -- such as discounted meals or gift cards -- can only be used by those who have signed up for the program.
Recyclebank officials released a statement to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday stating that a survey conducted last month in Little Rock about Recyclebank indicated positive feelings toward the program from users who answered it. The company did not respond to a request for an interview.
The company also touted a 57 percent increase in tonnage recycled since the program began in April 2012, but district board members have noted that this increase coincided with a nearly four-fold increase in the size of recycling bins and only a half-as-frequent pickup service.
"I don't know that the original need of the benefit bank really exists," said Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola, who is on the district board.
"[We] have made strides on participation, and I can't say that it was really caused by the benefit bank," he said.
Roberts said the district did not begin looking at the effectiveness of Recyclebank until April because the district was not financially on the hook for any of it yet.
The district has received intermittent program updates since it began in April 2012 that included program participation across the three cities targeted by it: Little Rock, North Little Rock and Sherwood.
Reports show 16.4 percent of targeted residents signed up for a Recyclebank account the month it debuted.
In July, 27 months after the program debuted in Pulaski County, 17,738 of 85,374 eligible residents were signed up, or 20.8 percent, and 1,729 reported participating during the month, according to Recyclebank data.
In April of this year, Recyclebank sent a program update recapping what it's done since 2012, noting that it sent two direct mail letters to all eligible households before the program began, along with an introduction letter.
George Wheatley, public sector services manager for Waste Management, said the program was additionally advertised in local magazines and the Arkansas Times.
But not everyone is convinced the marketing during the past two years has been enough.
"They dropped the ball on the promotion," district Deputy Director Carol Bevis said.
The district's $134,063 contribution to the program is the first of five years in which it's contracted to pay for it.
The contractor, Waste Management, is set to pay the other half of the program's expense this year.
The district, along with Waste Management, did not have to pay the quarter of a million dollars to run the program in its first two years because S.C. Johnson company -- manufacturer of household cleaning brands such as Glade and Raid -- decided to foot the bill through its partnership with Recyclebank.
The district hasn't paid Recyclebank for the program, although it has been billed for it each month since April.
Only Waste Management has made its payments so far.
Bevis said the district hasn't paid because officials still don't know what they're going to do about the program.
Recyclebank was not included in the district's budget until July 1, when its fiscal year kicked in. It received its first invoice in July for April, May and June.
Earlier this year, the district and its board elected to discontinue its nearly 10-year-old, $137,000 Saturday morning recycling drop-off sites for people who do not have curbside access in favor of spending on other projects, making the Recyclebank program the district's greatest expense, aside from salaries, for the 2014-15 fiscal year ending June 30.
Wheatley said that in 2011, the district and the mayors of the three cities with curbside recycling would not sign a contract with the company unless a rewards program was included.
Stodola said the cities wanted to make sure the new curbside recycling program would be used.
While the contract calls for a Think Green Rewards Program to be operated through the contractor's website, Waste Management shortly after entered into a partnership with Recyclebank, which then took over the rewards program, Wheatley said.
Recyclebank's operation in Pulaski County is largely funded through a formula of 25 cents per eligible household per month, and the district and Waste Management split that cost at a rate of 12.5 cents per eligible household.
With a per eligible household rate that doesn't account for households that aren't signed up, the district and Waste Management are set to spend at least $202,983 for Recyclebank this year on households that don't use it.
Roberts said the district is looking at keeping an incentives program but perhaps modifying it to be more beneficial to everyone involved.
Stodola said he wasn't sure the district was locked into a contract with Recyclebank, given that it's not named in the contract.
Wheatley said Waste Management was OK if the district decided to drop Recyclebank.
"If that's what the district and the cities want to do, we're not going to stand in their way," he said.
Stodola, Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman and North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith, who are all on the district's board, said they wanted more local businesses to participate.
They said local business participation was supposed to be part of the original plan.
"Some of these companies, they're not local and they're just not advantageous for people," Hillman said.
As it is now, benefits are largely concentrated in national and regional chain restaurants and stores.
Additionally, the mayors said it takes too many points to accrue certain rewards, such as a $5 gift card to Wal-Mart.
Stodola noted that he's been participating since the beginning and still doesn't have enough points for one.
"The rewards are almost not worth the effort to sign up," Smith said.
Smith said he wanted to see the program be less dependent on how a resident's route recycled.
"I could be the worst recycler in my neighborhood, but my neighborhood could be good and I get the points," Smith said. "What I'm looking for is an opportunity for everybody."
Metro on 08/11/2014