New project brings dual-stream recycling to rural communities
PRAIRIE GROVE — Recycling infrastructure is expanding to more rural communities in Northwest Arkansas.
Boston Mountain Solid Waste District is partnering with Neighbors NWA, a rural waste hauler, to bring dual-stream recycling to 400 households. Dual-stream recycling means recyclables are sorted by category while single-stream recycling means all recyclables are placed in one container.
Taylor Osburn, sustainability coordinator at Boston Mountain Solid Waste District, said the pilot program began Jan. 29 and ends in June.
The program asks 400 households not only to recycle, but to separate their recyclables by categories. Bottles and cans are placed in 60-gallon green bags while mixed paper is placed in 30-gallon blue bags.
It includes 200 households that didn’t previously have curbside recycling available, Osburn said. Increasing awareness is a goal for the district, she said.
“Most rural residents only have trash pickup available to them,” Osburn said. “We want to build a program that increases recycling rates by bringing recycling service[s] right to residents’ homes and helps smaller, rural haulers implement a sought-after service.”
Neighbors NWA is the only rural residential hauler in the pilot program. Co-owner Alex Joannes said the company serves communities throughout Northwest Arkansas, but the program focuses on households in Washington and Madison counties.
Joannes said the pilot program has allowed him to educate people about recycling. Many of his clients didn’t know curbside pickup was an option, he said.
Before Neighbors NWA was founded in 2021, rural households would have to bring their recycling to cen
ters throughout the region, Joannes said. Many of these sites are over 15 minutes away from households, costing residents time and money, he said.
That previous setup didn’t encourage recycling, Joannes said.
Recycling is just one of the many ways people can help combat climate change, said Amelia Southern-Uribe, founder of environmental justice organization Zero Hour Arkansas.
“Arkansas is 80% rural,” Southern-Uribe said. “We do have a stake in the game when we’re thinking about climate solutions and environmental solutions, because we’re going to be affected no matter where you are or who you are.”
According to NWA Recycles, a division of the Northwest Arkansas Council, 45,000 tons of recyclables were collected in 2022 in Benton, Washington and Madison counties. The 2023 numbers have not been released.
Osburn said she works closely with the council to increase the recycling infrastructure in the region.
She said the dual-stream model allows the district to track how much material is being recycled by category and prevents contamination.
According to the NWA Recycles 2022 report, 43% of single-stream recyclables were contaminated. The dual-stream model helps prevent that, according to the report.
If recyclables are contaminated with oils, food scraps or other materials, they have to be sent to landfills, taking up valuable space, both Southern-Uribe and Osburn said.
Southern-Uribe said education on what causes contamination is lacking, and recycling education overall should be bolstered, since the local landfill is running out of space.
The Eco-Vista landfill in Tontitown has operated since 1980 but is expected to run out of room in 10 to 12 years. An expansion was recently approved, but Tontitown officials are appealing the permit. It is the only publicly licensed landfill in the region.
Joannes said once the landfill is full, waste management costs will increase regionally, but increasing recycling efforts can extend the landfill’s lifespan.
While Neighbors NWA is the so called “guinea pig” in the experiment, both Joannes and Osburn said they hope the program will be expanded to all rural residential haulers.
“We’re not going to produce less waste,” Joannes said. “The question is, what are we going to do with it?”