Cameras on recycling trucks are helping drivers detect contaminated materials being placed in curbside recycling carts throughout Pulaski County.
Drivers are detecting contamination in up to 7% of the carts, depending on the route, said Bailey Moll, a Waste Management representative.
Contamination by weight is about 30% as it has been for several months, Moll said. Waste Management collects more than 1,000 tons of materials from recycling bins each month.
When Waste Management drivers see contamination, they are supposed to place a sticker on the recycling cart and decline to empty it. Tagged recycling carts are then logged, and Waste Management is working on eventually having its computer system automatically report homes that have been repeatedly tagged to the cities and the county's regional solid waste management district.
It's among the latest developments in more than a year of efforts to educate people on how to properly recycle.
In June, the Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District, a state solid waste management district that operates only in Pulaski County, mailed residents the first of a handful of postcards explaining what they can and cannot recycle.
Waste Management is paying for the postage (nearly $18,000). The mailings are sent to Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and unincorporated Pulaski County residents participating in the curbside recycling program.
The postcards prompted numerous phone calls from people asking about what is allowed in recycling bins, Reita Miller, chief information officer with the district, told district board members last month.
The district has recently put up outdoor advertisements, too. Billboards resemble the postcards -- minus most of the text -- showing empty plastic bottles, empty aluminum cans, paper and unfolded cardboard.
China cited contamination in recycling from the United States as its reason for no longer purchasing almost any recyclables from U.S. companies. That decision has depressed U.S. recycling markets and left recycling companies with municipal and business recycling contracts that are no longer profitable to them.
Some U.S. cities have done away with recycling programs, and many fear the recycling companies will eventually take quality, non-contaminated materials to landfills because trash hauling remains profitable.
"If the recycler can't sell it ... recycling doesn't work," said Craig Douglass, executive director of the Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District. The district has simplified its list of recyclable materials for customers to keep their recycling programs viable, he told the district's board last month.
The district has promoted its materials on social media and will soon air a new 30-second television advertisement on cable channels, promoting its green stations for glass and electronics recycling and its website MyDoRight.com. Promotions, so far, have increased traffic to the website, which explains what can and cannot be recycled, Douglass said.
Douglass has goals that go beyond what the district and Waste Management are already doing. Eventually, he wants to track which neighborhoods are the larger offenders of the recycling rules.
The district would use that information to better target those areas through neighborhood groups or homeowners associations, Douglass said. The district receives reports now on contaminated carts that include addresses, and the district could reach out to each resident to educate them on recycling, he said.
"The tagging is very important," Douglass said, "because the best education happens at the curb."
Normally, cities remove recycling carts from the homes that too frequently attempt to recycle improperly.
By March, North Little Rock had removed 575 recycling carts, and Little Rock had removed about 50, Douglass said. Sherwood and Pulaski County had removed none. Cities have been asked not to remove any while Waste Management audits the recycling routes, so he doesn't expect the numbers to have changed much since then.
A recent daily contamination report by Waste Management showed nearly 400 curbside residential recycling carts were "contaminated/unacceptable" across the three cities and the county's unincorporated area. Several businesses were also flagged for contamination.
All recycling loads are taken to Waste Management's materials recovery facility, Recycle America. Just what is contaminated and what is OK to be processed is determined there. Anything judged to be improper is loaded into another truck and hauled to Waste Management's landfill.
Recycling contamination since January has hovered just below 30%, Moll said. Last year, it was as high as 45%, he said.
He credits the reduction in contamination to Waste Management, district and city efforts to tag carts, remove carts and educate recyclers through advertisements, social media and news stories.
But part of the difficulty in significantly reducing the contamination rate isn't an education issue, he said.
Because the rate is based on weight, a single heavy object that is considered contamination can outweigh numerous items that are OK to recycle.
"If we got the heavy, stupid stuff out, that rate would be lower. I'm not sure that can be educated," Moll said. "I don't think anyone thinks rocks and toilets are recyclable. They are just intentionally abusing the system."
A kind of contamination that spoils a clean load, or part of a load, is called "putrescible."
That's baby diapers, spoiled food, liquids, oils and other such materials, Moll said. They spill and ruin other materials, such as paper and cardboard.
"Hopefully, the new education happening will lessen the stinky and wet garbage," he said.
Metro on 07/07/2019