City of Jonesboro puts carts into recycling work
By Roy Ockert Jr.
The City of Jonesboro is in the process of making a major change in its recycling program. In the past couple of years the number of city households participating in the blue bag program has grown to about 8,000.
That’s good but the increased volume, combined with a down market for recyclable materials, has put a strain on the process.
Over the past year, as a consultant to the City of Jonesboro, I’ve been on the committee charged with finding a solution. Now as interim chief of operations, I’m involved in putting the changes into effect that we hope will result in a better recycling program.
First, everyone should understand that almost all recycling has a cost to local governments. While many recyclable materials can be sold, the market goes up and down. For example, when the price of oil is low, plastics collected, bound and prepared for shipping bring less return. However, the cost of collecting and processing remains stead.
A better example is glass. At one time glass, especially clear glass, could be collected and sold at a price that made the costs worthwhile. Not today. The city’s contractor has continued to collect glass in the blue bags, but the contractor now takes trailer-loads to Legacy Landfill, where it is given away to a Kansas City company.
For the past three years the city has contracted with Abilities Unlimited Inc., a private Jonesboro nonprofit agency which serves individuals with disabilities. That 3-year contract, originally awarded in 2015, expires June 30.
Originally, Abilities Unlimited agreed to provide weekly pickup of blue bags at all Jonesboro residences and processing of their contents for $4,900 a month. However, that proved to be a financially unwise bid, and the agency gave notice to terminate the contract.
Another contract was drawn up and signed in June 2016, raising the city’s monthly payment for the same services to $15,650. That still wasn’t enough to cover its costs, according to AUI officials, and the contract was again amended in June 2017, reducing the blue bag pickup schedule to twice monthly.
About the same time our committee began meeting to discuss long-range solutions. We had hoped to find a grant that would allow the city to cover the cost of purchasing carts that would replace the blue bags, which are expensive and somewhat troublesome (when they break open). Plus, it’s not practical to recycle the blue bags – somewhat ironical considering their purpose.
Unfortunately, the only federal grant available for such a project would require the city to buy a cart for every household and would cover only small part of the cost. That was prohibitive, considering that only about 8,000 households participate.
Instead, it was decided to buy 10,000 carts and ask the citizens who recycle to pay the cost. As an incentive, though, we are offering them at a reduced price of $20 until June 30. After that, the price will go up to our cost, $50. So far, nearly 3,000 citizens have ordered the 64-gallon carts.
The city administration also decided that the Sanitation Department will take over the collection of recyclables, beginning July 1, and to solicit bids for processing of recyclable materials, also effective July 1. Bids were received last week and are under consideration.
The Sanitation Department will deliver the carts that have been ordered in June, and we’ll ask residents to start using them July 1. A new truck has been purchased with the mechanical arm that will allow the driver to pick up each cart at curbside, dump its contents in the back of the truck and return the cart to curbside.
Collection will be done on the same twice-monthly schedule as we have now. Stickers will be placed on each cart specifying when your neighborhood pickups are and listing the materials that can be placed in the carts for recycling.
Those materials are Nos. 1 and 2 plastics, tin, aluminum, cardboard, mixed paper (any color), newspapers and magazines. Those materials can be placed in the cart without separation into bags, etc. The processing contractor will do the separating.
The city’s contractor has been collecting all plastics, but only Nos. 1 and 2 have market value so the others will need to go in the trash cart. Also notably, the city will not be collecting glass in the recycle carts. It has no market value at present and, worse, it would break when dumped into the truck, posing a hazard to workers who will separate the materials by hand.
All items other than those seven I listed earlier should go in your trash cart. Any other items placed in the recycle carts will slow down the process and increase the costs.
The Sanitation Department is asking that on days both carts are taken to the curbside you leave three feet between them. Different trucks will pick up the respective carts, and the drivers will need room to maneuver the mechanical arms.
Yes, recycling is complicated, and we have to work hard just to break even. But there are hidden, long-term costs if we don’t recycle. Everything that we can recycle is that much less going into a landfill. That extends the life of our landfills, which are hard to locate (not in my neighborhood), expensive to operate and sometimes problematic years down the road. What we recycle also preserves natural resources, which are not infinite.
So get your cart while it’s cheap. It will last for years, a recycling feat in itself.
Roy Ockert, a retired editor of The Sun, can be reached at royo@suddenlink.net.