In 2011, the recycling center in Mountain View was able to collect more than a million pounds of scraps such as cardboard, aluminum cans, paper, plastic, steel, textiles, and electronic waste. These scraps were then sold in the market for close to $75,000.
Start of the solid waste management program
The solid waste management started in Mountain View County way back in 1987, after the then governor Bill Clinton passed a law that charged $1 on every pound of garbage in Arkansas’ landfills. In 1992, three of the counties were awarded $375,000.
At the start, the facility had two vertical balers. The workers had to manually feed the scraps into it. The horizontal baler was then incorporated into the building with the help of a grant of $20000. There are different grants available from Quorum Court and ADEQ, which is in addition to the money made from recyclables. The budget of the recycling center for last year was $140,000.
Processing the recyclables into eco friendly promotional items
There are three types of workers in the recycling center: the driver, the sorter, and the helper. The helper is tasked with getting out and collecting the scraps, which the sorter then sorts into relevant bags. There are four such trucks in operation in the county and three of them are almost always in use. Sometimes the people face difficulty as the scraps may be rotten and very dirty to the touch.
In the processing facility, the workers first lift all the bags of paper on forklift. This is then dumped onto the horizontal baler. As the conveyor belt with its load of paper moves up, the workers positioned on either side of the belt remove anything that is out of place in the load. When the load reaches the top, a chute is dropped down which presses the paper into bales. All types of materials can be baled here except for cloth.
Once in every week, clothes are also processed by the workers in this facility, using a vertical baler. These have to be shaken out and then thrown in batches. Whenever the quantity gets to 40,000 pounds, the scraps are transferred to a recycling facility where they are processed into eco friendly promotional items. The aluminum scraps are processed in the county itself.
Recyclables help in minimizing the negative impact that we have on the nature around. Getting paid for saving nature is an added bonus and presents an opportunity for one and all to contribute toward its improvement.
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