Image by Dero Sanford

Delta Plastics’ tractor trailers travel to 2,500 rural locations across the region to pick up discarded poly pipe irrigation and haul it back to its Stuttgart plant for recycling. The free pick-up service saves farmers from dealing with disposal, and ultimately helps Delta Plastics keep its waste out of landfills.

The 2012 Arkansas Green Guide, on newsstands and online (click here), focuses on three kinds of cycling: Recycling, upcycling and bicycling.

When it comes to sustainability, Arkansas is doing a lot of things right, but there’s still room for improvement. That’s why this issue, Green Guide’s fifth, is all about getting back to the basics by encouraging us to focus more on reducing and reusing, recycling, upcycling and bicycling -- all simple actions that reap huge rewards for Mother Nature.

One of the things we’re most excited to share with you is our cover story on the U.S. Green Building Council’s Arkansas Green Schools Challenge. In its inaugural year, the challenge requires that students at participating schools develop and execute eco-conscious programs that will benefit the school and/or the community (think starting a recycling program or reducing energy usage). By working with children, the Green Schools Challenge teaches our youngest generation to safeguard our planet for the future. 

We’re also eager for you to dive into our community section, which is devoted to bicycling. It’s no secret that Arkansas -- and central Arkansas in particular -- is big on bicycling. And why shouldn’t we be? Bicycling is better for the environment than driving, improves the health of our residents and benefits the economy by attracting young professionals to the area.

As in every issue, this one also showcases a beautiful and sustainable home, an eco-conscious business, handy resource guides to help you build, work, learn and live green, and profiles of six Eco-Heroes who are working to make our state, nation and planet a better place.

We hope you enjoy reading the new issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Feel free to share our digital edition on Facebook and via e-mail. Access it online by clicking here.

P.S.: We’re on Facebook and Twitter, too.