The Little Rock Board of Directors will vote today on whether to approve new curbside recycling terms that would raise customer prices and stop glass collection.
Under the new contract terms, residents would pay $4.14 per month, up from $2.99 per month, to Waste Management for curbside recycling services. The new fee would go into effect April 1 and last until March 31, 2020, when it would then rise for another year to $4.29 per month. There are nearly 60,000 solid-waste customers in Little Rock.
North Little Rock and Sherwood are under the same contract as Little Rock. On Tuesday, North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith broke a tie to pass the legislation, which includes an amendment requiring the actual contract to come back before the City Council for approval after the finalization of contract terms by all parties. The Sherwood City Council will vote Oct. 11.
At a recent agenda meeting, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola told the city Board of Directors he had looked into contracts for recycling that do not include garbage pickup, but continuing with Waste Management made fiscal sense.
"If you look around the country, stand-alone recycling contracts are going anywhere from $5 to $7, so to try and tie this down for a two-year extension, we thought it was a pretty good deal to try and keep it at that rate," he said.
Stodola proposed coordinating a voluntary glass recycling program with Ace Glass, a glass company starting its own recycling business in Little Rock, and seeing if the company could provide the service for free, based on the value of the glass.
George Wheatley, Waste Management's public service manager for Arkansas and three other Southern states, has said the utility did not consider shifting glass recycling to Ace Glass' center to be feasible, based on the size of the facility.
The contract proposal also includes Waste Management paying the Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District $150,000 in funds to educate residents about what can and cannot be recycled in hopes of lessening the amount of contaminated materials placed in bins. The payments would be $5,000 monthly for 30 months.
Little Rock has a contamination rate of approximately 32 percent, about the same as North Little Rock's rate.
"Waste Management says that if they got out of the trucks and actually dug through the bins it would be closer to 70 percent," Stodola told the Board of Directors.
Much of the contamination results from broken glass, plastic bags and other prohibited items. An education campaign could include notices inside utility bills, public service announcements and a social media campaign, Stodola said.
City Directors Joan Adcock and Doris Wright said they had seen problems with recycling compliance. Adcock, who serves the city at-large, said people don't know that rain contaminates recyclable material, so when bins' lids are left open, the waste is left to pile up.
"The citizens, evidently, don't understand why they're not being picked up because they just leave them out there," she said. "So I'd like to see some type of notice by waste management, like, 'I didn't pick this up because it's over the lid.'"
Wright, who represents Ward 6, said there was a problem in some west-central Little Rock neighborhoods of people using recycling bins for trash. Currently, Waste Management has the responsibility of "tagging" those bins, meaning the residence could have the bins taken away, with assistance from the city's Public Works Department.
Stodola said he wasn't sure what would happen if one of the three cities voted not to renew the contract. At-large City Director Dean Kumpuris said residents might have to shoulder the cost of building more landfills if the terms are not approved.
"I hope it doesn't prevent us from continuing, because I think it's very important," Stodola said. "I would hate to see us go backwards on this after all the hard work we've put into this."
The board's 6 p.m. voting meetings normally take place every other Tuesday, but this week's has been moved up one day in observance of National Night Out, a community event that Little Rock celebrates the first Tuesday in October.
Metro on 10/01/2018