After three months of complaints from constituents, Pulaski County Justice of the Peace Doug Reed is looking for a way to pay for two recycling drop-off centers for residents not served by curbside pickup.
Last week, he asked regional recycling officials to attend a Quorum Court meeting to discuss why the county no longer has drop-off centers and where the most-used drop-offs are located.
Reed, R-Roland, has no formal proposal before the Quorum Court but is looking at finding room in the county budget for drop-off centers or temporarily paying for them using carryover funds.
"My thought is, let's just start with the two most-used places," he said.
Carol Bevis, deputy director for the Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District, told the Quorum Court that the most-used sites were on Chenal Valley Drive, Joe's Grocery in southwest Pulaski County just outside Little Rock and on Baseline Road in southwest Little Rock.
Residents can take their recyclables to city facilities in Maumelle, Jacksonville, Goldman Recycling in east Little Rock and Recycle America in southeast Little Rock, but some residents in west Pulaski County have complained that those options are too far away.
"Most people in west Little Rock are not going to drive that far," Reed said.
Harold Tucker, who lives west of Little Rock, has emailed Reed asking what the county can do about recycling.
"There are people who would like to participate," he said.
Tucker said he used the Chenal Valley Drive collection site at least every other week until it closed. He uses the Maumelle site now but can't take plastic containers there, so he throws them in the trash, as he suspects most of his neighbors do.
Tucker said he'd be willing to pay for recycling as long as it's not more than what city residents pay.
Waste district officials told the Quorum Court that the recycling grant funds were depleted and that Waste Management did not want to provide drop-off services because they were no longer profitable.
George Wheatley, public sector services manager for Waste Management, acknowledged that the drop-off sites were not profitable but said the district had told him it couldn't afford them any longer and asked whether the company would provide them for free.
The drop-off sites had been receiving smaller amounts of materials each year since 2011. In 2012, Sherwood introduced curbside, single-stream recycling, and Little Rock and North Little Rock began single-stream recycling that same year.
Single-stream recycling allows residents to place all of their recyclables into a single container instead of sorting them.
After the drop-off sites closed in June, the waste district no longer funded its own recycling programs -- other than for electronics recycling -- in its $1.3 million budget.
It has since focused much of its funds on recycling education and promotion, including $134,063 for a curbside recycling incentives program and $15,000 for the first time this year to promote Little Rock's new recycling pickup program for many apartment buildings.
The incentives program has since been canceled, and the funds have been placed in escrow as the district awaits starting a new program next year.
District Executive Director John Roberts said the drop-offs are not as cost effective for the district as are the city curbside programs. When asked what the district financially contributes toward the curbside programs, Roberts said he didn't know and hung up on a reporter.
The district, also known as the Pulaski County Regional Solid Waste Management District, has received varying amounts in recycling grants each year. In 2012, it received $398,000. In 2013, it received $45,000 less, or $353,000. But in 2014, that amount went up $5,000 to $358,000.
The grants can be used for "build, equip, and staff collection facilities; cover transportation costs; purchase supplies needed to run a program; pay for education and public awareness programs; and contract for recycling services for a variety of unwanted electronic equipment," according the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
In Benton County, the regional solid waste management district funds several drop-off sites but also charges 50 cents per household per month to fund some of its programs.
Buddy Villines, the county judge for Pulaski County and a member of the recycling district board, said he values recycling, but the district doesn't have the money to fund the drop-off sites.
"I'd love to do it," he said. "Show me how to do it."
Reed said he's not sure how the drop-offs could be refunded or how other justices of the peace might feel about only restarting certain centers.
"I just want to start a conversation about it," he said.
Metro on 09/29/2014