Workers vote to keep recycling center open

BELLA VISTA — The Recycling Center continues to be open during the covid-19 pandemic.

Volunteer board president Paul Poulides said employees took a vote in late March on whether to stay open or close, and everyone voted to stay open.

He said, “We’re sanitizing everything in the morning; everyone is wearing gloves and sanitizing their work surfaces, just being careful with this virus.”

Poulides said the recycling center doesn’t rely on the city or county for money and receives a small grant from the state. It’s a nonprofit group and donates all proceeds to charity. All board members are volunteers, and the center operated with all-volunteer workers until about eight years ago, he said.

“Little by little, it started dwindling,” he said. The center now has five paid employees and 10 to 20 volunteers.

He said all the recyclables are baled and sold to the highest bidder, and everything after expenses is donated to charity. He said the center used to donate about $150,000 a year, but after hiring workers, that number went down to about $50,000. Also, the market for recyclables has gone down. A year and a half ago the center was able to sell a ton of cardboard for $240, and that price went down to $40 per ton late last year. However, Poulides said, prices are starting to go up again.

Some of the charities the center has donated to include several churches, transitional shelters for women and men, and the Bella Vista Animal Shelter, he said.

Each year, the center has processed and recycled more than 5 million pounds for the past 10 to 12 years, he said.

“We do more recycling than Rogers, Siloam. One year we had 6 million pounds,” he said.

Poulides said several recycling centers in Northwest

Arkansas have closed during the pandemic, but the Bella Vista center is staying open.

The center accepts all paper, steel and aluminum cans, plastic and glass bottles and textiles.

It also provides free shredding to noncommercial customers and sells moving boxes.

Poulides said customers are asked to sort their items when they bring them to the center.

“Of all the recyclers anywhere around, four-, fivestate area, we sort really well, so (buyers) want to buy our product,” he said.

The center is open 24 hours Monday through Saturday, and staff are on-site from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and can help with unloading during those hours.

“It keeps it out of the landfills. That’s why we’re here,” Poulides said.

Bales of aluminum cans are stacked to the ceiling in a storage building at the Bella Vista Recycling Center. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Rachel Dickerson)

Tricia Stout sorts through magazines moving into a baler at the Bella Vista Recycling Center. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Rachel Dickerson)