Program to recycle electronics on tap
Pulaski County businesses soon will be able to apply to have their old electronics picked up and recycled, the Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District announced recently.
District Deputy Director Carol Bevis said she hopes the pickup program will start Feb. 1.
Once it's started, businesses will be able to go to the district's website and fill out forms indicating what they need picked up. The district has already purchased and decorated a truck for the service at a cost of $35,000, Bevis said.
The district also will have to pay for promotion of the program, but the actual service will be carried out by the district's Rogers-based contractor eSCO Processing and Recycling at no additional cost. The district already uses the contractor to put on its semiannual electronics recycling drive at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock.
The district will try out the program for six months before evaluating it, Bevis said. If all goes as hoped, the district may no longer need to hold the semiannual recycling events.
Electronics recycling is one of the more profitable forms of recycling, and the district collects 20 percent of eSCO's profits on the recycling program.
Bevis said the district receives electronics-recycling grants from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality from excess money in the landfill post-closure trust fund. But she said the excess money has not always been there and that the district could see less in coming years.
The department announced three electronics-recycling grants totaling $200,000 last week.
It gave $100,000 to Goodwill Industries of Arkansas that will go toward developing a center in Little Rock to process and recycle electronics, $50,000 to eSCO for electronics recycling, and $50,000 to Texarkana for expanding its electronics-recycling center.
2 firms face fines for waste lapses
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality informed the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, its appellate body, on Dec. 5 of administrative action it is taking against two companies.
The department ordered Stella-Jones Corp. of Russellville to pay a $7,150 fine and make plans to remedy problems it had with wood-treatment drippings that didn't go into the proper collection system, against hazardous-waste management laws. The order comes more than a year after the department began meeting with the company about the problem.
The department also ordered Quapaw Products of Helena-West Helena to pay $45,000 in fines and to comply with laws on hazardous-waste management, including properly labeling its hazardous waste. The order comes after more than a year of issues the department cited between it and the company.
3 facilities in state under EPA review
The Environmental Protection Agency will conduct five-year reviews at three Arkansas facilities -- two landfills and an abandoned wood-treatment facility -- to ensure the cleanup of each site is up to standard, according to an agency news release.
The reviews are required by law.
The sites in Arkansas are the Jacksonville Municipal Landfill, the Rogers Road Municipal Landfill in Jacksonville and Mountain Pine Pressure Treating in Plainview.
Within the agency's six-state region that includes Arkansas, 22 sites will be reviewed.
Metro on 12/18/2014