Tools

Seventeen years seems like a long time when you’re a landfill administrator and nobody’s taken out the trash yet. As the years pass and the pile swells, however, the future begins to grow so increasingly close you can smell it.

For Conway, that smell was expected to be most pungent in 2007, when estimates showed its 5.2-million-cubic-yard landfill, opened in 1991, would be brimming with everything from construction waste to household garbage. Yet more than three years past that point on the timeline, workers still dump their trucks there. And they’re not even pushing the landfill’s limit. Revised estimates extend its life expectancy another 17.4 years – more time than when it was empty. No space was added; no math errors made. The city’s recycling program is just that strong. “Conway is years ahead of everybody else in this region,” said Matt Harris, regional sales manager for NEXGEN Baling Systems, a company that supplied the facility’s equipment.

The History

Compelled residents were the foundation of the city’s recycling success. The first community-organized recycling drive netted 22,000 pounds of paper, magazines and aluminum cans in 1990, the year the landfill opened. “People who were following news of the landfill at all realized it wasn’t just a matter of finding an open space. It was so difficult to site a spot, and it was so expensive,” said Debbie Plopper, an organizer of the drive. It became a monthly event, and by the third time, more than 50,000 pounds of materials were collected. “That’s when we went to Steve Martin,” the city sanitation director at the time, “and said, ‘We need collection trucks; we need something; we’ve got too much volume.’”

The city provided trucks and hauled the material to Little Rock, the closest facility. But a 1994 bond issue, supported by 93 percent of voters, changed the trucks’ routes by allowing for the January 1995 opening of Conway’s Material Recovery Facility.

Modern Recycling

Recycling remained popular in Conway, so much so that there came a point when the facility didn’t have enough personnel to keep up with the sorting. Currently, about 40 percent of residents and 55 percent of local businesses recycle. “Do we quit asking people to recycle?” asked Cheryl Harrington, the current sanitation director. “I’d like to one day see recycling participation at 100 percent,” she said.

So the city took the next step, purchasing a $1.6 million automated recycling sorter that came online in April 2010. Optical and air systems decipher materials as they move through the machine. Employees are still stationed along the way to ensure nothing slips through improperly, but the machine cut staffing in half. After separation, it’s baled and stored before being sold to vendors, which earns back about half of the facility’s operating costs under current market conditions. “Unless the economy really takes a boost, it probably will never actually pay for itself,” Harrington said. “But if [recycling] keeps it out of my landfill, and I don’t lose all that airspace, that is worth millions of dollars.”

The same philosophy is behind the Styrofoam densifier, which melts the material so it can be made into plastic items. “If it came in here by the truckloads on a daily basis, it might turn a profit,” Harrington said. Conway accepts Styrofoam from anywhere at no charge, and processing its own Styrofoam has saved manpower cleaning it up in the landfill when it is crushed into beads and blowing all over. “It’s simply the right thing to do to capture it and recycle it and let it be used to make something else instead of letting it go into the ground where it is of no use and causes problems.”

Recipe for Success

The department’s organizational structure, its collection methods and its education efforts all contribute to the near quadrupling of recycled material since 2003. The city owns the landfill, trucking service and recycling facility – one of the few communities in the state that does. That control gives the city the ability to incentivize recycling among the small business community, which currently participates at about 60 percent. “We have control over how much is charged, what size container we issue to the public, and the recycling services that are offered.”

Conway allows residents to co-mingle their recyclables: the only requirement is that all material – newspaper, plastic, paper, etc. – is put into a bag before being placed in the blue recycling cart and wheeled out to the curb. Studies show that recycling diminishes 10 percent with every sort residents are asked to do. Co-mingling makes education efforts much easier for the department – it’s really just about broadening awareness of the free program, Harrington said. More than 7,500 children and adults tour the facility annually, and the department has its own education coordinator, whose monthly articles reach as many as 45,000 people. Nearly 40 percent of residents currently recycle; Harrington hopes to increase that rate to 50 percent within two years, she said.

Besides the long list of awards the department has received, the department has the honor of disseminating information to communities throughout Arkansas and even neighboring states that contact the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality for help with their own recycling programs. For a community to start from the ground up would be difficult, but possible, Harrington said. “We have not had any issues with being able to meet the demand with the revenue that we generate, but I’m a tightwad,” Harrington said. “If I was starting all over again, I’d first look at what the capital expenditures are going to be – because they are high – and then, do you even have the place to put a facility such as this?”

Looking Forward

Conway may have to implement a “pay-as-you-throw” program to increase recycling rates, like Fayetteville does. When you start talking about taking on another 25,000 or more houses, you’re talking about more trucks, more manpower and more expenses to do that.

Increasing participation among residents would boost recycling rates, as would accepting more materials. Harrington has her eye on roofing materials. Already, she’s collaborating with the chairman of the Faulkner County Solid Waste Department and the County Judge about using the product in an asphalt program for roads. “Even if you just put it down right out of the grinder, you would still eliminate dust, and if there’s a liquid product to put with it, it would set up like asphalt.

An improved glass recycling program also makes Harrington’s agenda. Currently residents and businesses are required to take the paper labels off the glass, and anything inconvenient diminishes participation. “We are also looking into a fluorescent bulb and compact fluorescent bulb recycling program,” she said.