Consumer Participation (Craig Douglass On Consumers)

Customer service is a key tenet to successful consumer transactions. We all like effective customer service, to be served, waited on. And sometimes the most effective customer service, providing to us the outcome and experience we want, requires our participation. Consumers are part of the customer-service equation. Participation is required.

This notion is particularly true when it comes to residential recycling. I know a little something about recycling, and I’m learning more every day. If residential customers are not informed on how to participate in effective recycling and how to “do recycling right,” recycling simply won’t work. It takes willing and educated participants.

Here’s an example: Starting the week of April 1, Waste Management will no longer accept glass in curbside recycle carts — you know, the big green cart on wheels. We’re talking mostly about beer bottles, pickle jars, wine bottles and other food and liquid jars. We now must not put them in the cart.

The problem’s not that glass isn’t recyclable. It is. The problem is that glass breaks. And when it breaks in your curbside recycle cart or inside the recycle truck, it can mix in with the other recyclable items in your cart, items like paper, cardboard (flattened to fit inside your cart), plastic bottles and jugs, and metal cans. And when broken glass mixes in with other materials, it makes them less recyclable. That means they can’t be marketed for reuse by manufacturers. No reuse. No recycling.

There is an option in central Arkansas, however, and that includes dropping glass off at the Regional Recycling & Waste Reduction District’s five Green Stations around Pulaski County and at designated Edwards Food stores. For more information on where you can take glass for recycling, go to MyDoRight.com. At that website, the locations and times you can drop glass off are listed.

If you don’t want to participate in glass recycling by dropping it off at designated locations, then put it in the trash, where it will ultimately be crushed and landfilled. The Recycling District hopes you won’t do that. What the district does hope you’ll do is go to MyDoRight.com to learn more.

Here are two more examples of consumer participation in the recycling process:

► Rather than give you a long list of things that should be left out of the curbside recycle cart, the list of recyclable items that can go in the recycling cart has been simplified. They include regular paper like office paper; cardboard, flattened to fit inside the cart; plastic bottles and jugs, the kinds where the opening at the top is always smaller than the base at the bottom; and aluminum, tin and steel cans. That’s it!

There are a few simple rules, however. Make sure all plastic bottles and jugs and metal cans are empty and rinsed (Waste Management tells us to just rinse them out). Also, be sure to leave out any food- or liquid-containing cartons. No cartons. And remember, no glass of any kind. All that information is also listed on MyDoRight.com.

► One more: Since it’s now time for a little spring cleaning, we all can see that another year has gone by and improved electronics technology and holiday gift-giving have left us with new TVs, computers, printers, cellphones and advanced countertop appliances, making the old ones obsolete. But instead of throwing them away, the Recycling District will recycle them. For free!

On Tuesday, April 23, and Wednesday, April 24, unplug your old electronic equipment and take it to the Verizon Arena parking lot on East Washington in North Little Rock and let the Recycling District unload it. All the work will be done for you anytime between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. on both days.

TVs, computers, computer accessories and all forms of electronics should never go in a landfill. It creates too much toxic waste. So, because these items are recyclable, drop them off at Verizon Arena and let the district recycle them.

For added safety and security, computer hard drives will be destroyed. There’s a special website for electronics recycling at ReyclingUnplugged.com.

There you have it.

Sometimes consumers must actively participate in product and service transactions. The consumer-business partnership increases the value of the total experience.

And it makes us all look and act a little smarter.

Craig Douglass is a marketing and communications consultant and serves as executive secretary of the Regional Recycling & Waste Reduction District. Email him at Craig@CraigDouglass.com.