Recycling Day marked by Monday drop-offs

LITTLE ROCK — Monday is National Recycling Day, and Pulaski County residents can celebrate by dropping off items at “Green Stations,” according to the Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District.

“This is the first countywide promotion we have done where all Green Stations are open all day on the same day,” Craig Douglass, executive director of the district, said via email Thursday.

Green stations are the district’s drop-off recycling locations dedicated to special recyclables, including old electronics, plastic grocery bags, empty glass bottles and jars, and household hazardous waste, the news release states.

National Recycling Day — also known as America Recycles Day — began in 1997. It was started by the National Recycling Coalition as an environmental and natural resources protection response to the need for a national recycling strategy, according to the district.

“Recycling has long been recognized to enhance manufacturing efficiency by reducing the cost of raw materials,” a district news release says. “From an environmental standpoint, recycling reduces the consumption of natural resources and protects land, water, and air by reducing pollutants; reduces the volume of waste sent to landfills and incinerators; protects the public health by preventing chemicals entering ground water, release of toxins in the air, and breeding of insects and rodents caused by illegal dumping; enhances economic development and private-sector job creation from recyclingrelated business and industry.”

Arkansas ranks 42nd in the United States in the rate at which it recycles the most commonly used containers and packaging materials, according to “The 50 States of Recycling: A State-by-State Assessment of Containers and Packaging Recycling Rates” report released earlier this year by research and consulting firm Eunomia.

The Natural State recycles at a rate of just 28%. It has no supportive legislation on CCPMs (plastic bottles and trays, glass bottles and jars, aluminium cans, steel cans, and cardboard and box board), the report states, though it’s not clear as to how “supportive legislation” is defined.

“While Arkansas has introduced deposit return legislation for beverage containers several times since 2007, it has never passed any,” the report notes, referencing the latest effort in 2019, House Bill 1771 (the Arkansas Litter Reduction and Deposit Beverage Container Recycling Act), which would have created a state agency to oversee the program and applied a 5-cent deposit to covered containers.

Of the 10 higher-recycling states, eight have a Deposit Return System for beverage containers, commonly known as a “bottle bill.” Seven have high disposal costs.

The study ranked each state according to its recycling rate for its 2018 common containers and packaging materials.

Cardboard and box board accounted for 73% of the total weight of materials recycled in 2018. The report states that the covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a significant decrease in the amounts of cardboard being generated from the commercial sector, while creating a significant increase in home delivery.

The five states with the best recycling rates, without cardboard, were: Maine (72%); Vermont (62%); Massachusetts (55%); Oregon (55%); and Connecticut (52%).

Arkansas had a 14% rate without cardboard and bested its neighbors Louisiana (4%), Mississippi (8%), Oklahoma (10%) and Texas (13%). However, Missouri (30%) and Tennessee (22%) came out ahead.

“This study presents a first-of-its-kind state-by-state comparable assessment of recycling rates for common containers and packaging materials (CCPM) and determines generation, recycling, and disposal rates on a pound per capita basis,” states the U.K.-based international sustainability consultancy’s report. “It then ranks the states according to performance and provides qualitative insights into some of the factors that may be contributing to higher or lower recycling rates.”