An Endless Loop (Craig Douglass On Consumers)

Someone else will worry about it. That notion represents many consumers’ opinions about recycling. But not all. There are folks in communities across the state who understand the benefits of recycling. And those benefits include protecting the public health, conserving natural resources, reducing carbon emissions, enhancing the efficiency of manufacturing and safeguarding our shared environment — just to name a few.

Making recycling more relevant to everyday consumers requires information, education and messaging appealing to economic interests — so-called pocketbook issues like jobs, incomes and community services funded by an expanded tax base. Put another way, recycling creates jobs. And it does so in three primary ways:

► Through collecting, processing and preparing household recyclables. When you put them in your cart or drop them off at a recycling collection center, they are picked up and transported to materials recovery centers where they are sorted, prepared and sold to markets.

► By making new products from recycled feedstocks or raw materials, many of which are provided by you.

► Through reuse and remanufacturing. That includes, for example, electronic waste like your old computer or printer that can be refurbished and resold at a discount to be used again for its original purpose.

The Environmental Protection Agency lists in its recycling information and education project the number of jobs supported per 1,000 tons of recycled commodities. Among them: electronics, 33 jobs; tires, 11.9; glass, 10.2; plastics, 23.5; paper, 1.7; and aluminum cans, 28.5 jobs. The more we recycle the right stuff, the more jobs created in those industries and our communities.

There are some new things happening for Arkansas recycling.

In April 2021, the Arkansas General Assembly passed and the governor signed Act 839, which establishes a statewide electronic waste recycling program. The program, the first of its kind in the country, is market-driven and designed to take advantage of the competitive power of private industry to participate in the statewide mission of recycling and, in the case of electronic waste, keep hazardous chemicals out of landfills, at no cost to the state.

Other possibilities include locating glass and plastics recycling plants in Arkansas. These are in the early stages of development. They follow the October announcement of a new manufacturing plant in the Little Rock Port that will make composite decking and other outdoor living products from recycled plastics and wood remnants. The 500-job, $400 million investment by Trex Co. of Winchester, Virginia, will provide a local market for the Arkansas timber industry’s reclaimed wood and recycled plastics like plastic bags and film wrapping.

It will take all of us — individuals, business and industry — participating in recycling to make these entrepreneurial projects a success for Arkansas and Arkansas jobs.

“Just get rid of it” is another notion that enters the thoughts of some consumers. But just throwing used-up products in the trash for dumping in a landfill reverses the benefits of recycling. Recycling takes effort, but the appearance of that recycling cart in front of the house shows others on your street that you know what’s what; it’s the status of participation and just plain smarts. You get that kind of satisfaction, too, when you drop off things like old electronics, glass, hazardous household chemicals and plastic grocery bags at a recycling collection center.

Recycling begins with you, the residential consumer, and continues in the profitable sales of recycled materials and products in an open marketplace. And on and on it goes in what could be an endless loop benefiting us all.

Craig Douglass serves as executive director of the Regional Recycling & Waste Reduction District in Pulaski County.