Not easy being green
Can we get more of these?
Aword of advice to the folks at Little Rock City Hall: Get ready to be overwhelmed.
It’s just a hunch, but this new “green station” that the city has opened on South Thayer Street might get more business than anybody thinks—in recyclables. Which is a good thing. But still a big thing.
How many Arkansans have separated trash and recyclables all these years, only to reluctantly throw the glass bottles in the refuse with fast-food cups and diapers? It seems like such a waste. But so many recyclable collectors out there don’t take glass. Or plastic Walmart bags. (The green lady in our house takes those bags back to Walmart.) There are so many things that you’d
think are recyclable, but aren’t. Mainly because there’s not much of a market out there for glass and old batteries and plastic bags.
It was as refreshing as a February breeze to read in the newspaper that Little Rock has opened up a place to take such items. Officials held a ribbon-cutting the other day on South Thayer. While there are four green stations spread around Pulaski County— Sherwood, Jacksonville, Maumelle and North Little Rock—the green station in the state’s biggest city has been out of commission for more than a year.
(NB: The Pulaski County Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District operates/guides/promotes these efforts.)
According to Mayor Frank Scott’s office, via our news article: “The previous Green Station in Little Rock had multiple limitations that ultimately prompted its closure in November 2022. The collection area at the old station on Kanis Road was unfenced, meaning many prohibited items were being left there during off-hours, making the location unsightly and unsafe.”
The new place on South Thayer is fenced. And has hours posted.
There are people here who very much want to recycle everything possible. Even little plastic pill bottles. Even the paper that drinking straws come in. (Really. We’ve seen that.)
According to the city’s website, you can now recycle electronics, wires, switches, TVs, radios, old office equipment, dead home appliances, old batteries and light bulbs, pesticides, and used motor oil. The only items listed as prohibited are explosives, ammo, paint, and tires. And for tires, might we suggest that reuse is even better than recycling. Old tires make for great flower bed borders if covered properly.
A fifth green station in Pulaski County is just what the environment ordered. Now if we could get a sixth. And maybe a seventh. And eighth . . . .