Teresa Sidwell ventures out in a truck armed with a grappling hook about once a month to clean up roadside dumps in Benton County.
The job could include a mattress, a couch, a couple of televisions, a pile of tires, leftovers from a contracting job or even buckets of chemical waste, said Sidwell, county environmental coordinator.
Washington County Electronics event
Washington County will hold a free electronics recycling event Dec. 28 through Jan. 8 where businesses and residents can drop off up to 10 electronics like televisions, computers, stereo systems or phones at three locations including the Washington County Household Hazardous Waste Dropoff at 2615 Brink Drive in Fayetteville. The county site will be open Jan. 2 from 8 a.m. to noon and weekday hours.
Source: Staff report
Benton County information
For more information on the Benton County Convenience Center visit http://tas275.wix.c…
People caught dumping face fines and possible misdemeanor charges.
Proper disposal of tires, electronics and household hazardous waste often costs money, but the county waives disposal fees at semi-annual cleanup events.
Benton County has held the cleanup days for more than five years. More than 1,000 people typically show up to the spring and fall events, according to a count Sidwell keeps. Rain or a busy weekend can drop attendance.
But people shouldn't have to save their hard-to-dispose of items for six months to get rid of them, Sidwell said. So Benton County will put the two-day events on hold in 2016 and institute a convenience center program in partnership with the Benton County Solid Waste District.
In 2016, the program will allow residents to drop off household hazardous waste on a daily basis at the waste district's 5702 Brookside Road location just outside of Centerton. Household hazardous waste was only received during the twice-a-year events in the past.
"It's kind of an opportunity for us to see if we can get people to recycle more," Sidwell said.
The change also is projected to reduce costs for Benton County. The biggest expense for the events historically has been the household hazardous waste station where cleaners, fluorescent bulbs, paints or varnishes, pool chemicals, automotive fluid and aerosol containers are processed.
Benton County contracted out household hazardous waste disposal for its twice-a-year events. The fall event cost more than $27,000 this year and the spring event -- typically the larger of the two -- cost nearly $36,000.
Setup for an event is more expensive than a permanent facility for household hazardous waste, said Sophia Stephenson, Washington County environmental affairs director. Washington County accepts household waste items on a daily basis at its center. The county has spring and fall cleanups that are strictly for bulky waste -- couches, mattresses and the like, she said.
People don't realize there is a cost associated with properly processing items, Stephenson said.
Electronics are piled on a pallet, shrink-wrapped and taken to a facility that will dismantle them safely and send the materials off for recycling, Stephenson said. Household chemicals are sent off to be neutralized before disposal.
The costs are why there is a $5 charge for small electronics, Stephenson said. Benton County will waive its $5 fee for household hazardous waste for the 2016 pilot program.
An employee trained in household hazardous waste disposal will remove the necessity of contracting the job out in Benton County, Sidwell said. Estimates provided to county administrators put the annual cost of adding that employee and partnering with the Rogers Recycling Center and the Siloam Springs Transfer and Recycling Center for two additional drop-off sites at $152,000.
The purpose of the cleanup centers and events is to give people a way to properly dispose of items and not leave them beside a road, Sidwell said. She hopes the daily hours get people in the habit of bringing items by.
Benton County averages about one case a day of illegal dumping. Enforcement officers have worked more than 120 cases involving dumped tires in 2015, including one where residents spotted a man offloading tires in the middle of the day. He was caught, cited and had to load the tires back up and provide a receipt for their proper disposal, Sidwell said.
It can be hard to enforce dumping rules without a neighbor reporting the incident, she said. Bagged trash may have the person's address on bills or name on prescription bottles.
"People who dump on other people don't dump very far from where they live," Sidwell said. "It makes it someone else's problem."
Properly disposing of trash is important to health, Stephenson said.
Landfills are lined, but the more hazardous chemicals that are dumped in a landfill the more potential there is for them to eat through the liner and leak into the ground. The karst topography of Northwest Arkansas would allow those chemicals to flow into underground streams and spread contamination, Stephenson said.
"If somebody is dumping, whether it's by the side of the road or in the back holler, that is going to very easily get into the ground and into the water," she said. "What you put on the ground can eventually affect what you're drinking."
NW News on 12/27/2015