Recycling Is Economic Development (Craig Douglass Commentary)

Recycling has been placed in a metaphorical box. Historically, the promotion of recycling’s benefits has been limited to the environment. It’s time to break down the box and recycle its cardboard walls.

Recycling is economic development. Obvious environmental benefits parallel this approach. In Arkansas, our increasing population, urban growth and consumer consumption, while placing a burden on the environment, also afford a change in perspective. The more relevant point of view should be that recycling does not only address the above environmental pressures, but can also be considered fundamental to the economy and to economic development, including private-sector job creation. That job creation can also benefit rural Arkansas, which deserves environmental, as well economic development, attention.

Economic development strategies are informed by location, workforce, energy, tax structure and regulation, access to manufacturing feedstocks, and environmental and social amenities. Recycling strategies are informed by logistics, job creation, solid waste regulations, and responding to commodity pricing by providing raw materials for manufacturing, thus reducing cost, saving energy and decreasing community waste and landfill disposal.

Do we see how these strategies can work together? Here are two examples.

Under construction today in North Little Rock is a glass recycling plant. The plant was made possible by the vision of its Arkansas owners, as well as, in part, by the work of our local regional solid waste management district, which oversees recycling programs throughout Pulaski County and waste tire recycling in more than one-third of our state.

The glass recycling plant will take glass bottles, jars and jugs. The resulting products will include what is called foamed glass aggregate. A light-weight material weighing 85% less than traditional aggregate — gravel — it can be used in road construction, backfill and in-ground insulation.

Discarded glass will become recycled material that saves money, reduces the environmental effects of mining, and repurposes what consumers usually throw in the trash. Plus, the new glass recycling plant will create a least 40 jobs.

Another example is the northeast Arkansas steel industry. At this writing, a Mississippi County steel mill is using 550 tons per week of waste tires from our tire district in its recycling process, consuming tire carbon and harvesting steel cord.

These are but two examples. There are other important recycling-as-economic-development stories across our state. But there is no state recycling policy pulling it all together. With a consistent and coherent statewide policy, the opportunity created by this new perspective could be built into economic development efforts, while ensuring that recycling collection, transportation and processing is better coordinated, reducing cost.

Recycling is economic development. It’s commerce. It can play a critical role in remodeling the recovery and supply of post-consumer materials and providing these raw materials to existing industry, as well as act as a catalyst for new manufacturing enterprises, industry recruitment and jobs — all while helping protect the beauty and tourism-attracting environment of the Natural State.

Break down the box. Recycle it. And recognize the dual benefits of recycling and the promise of greater economic development through advanced manufacturing.

Craig Douglass is executive director of the Regional Recycling District in Pulaski County.