Recycling glass for many bars and restaurants in the region is difficult or expensive or both. The Northwest Arkansas Council wants to increase the amount of glass diverted from the landfill and is working with a Little Rock recycling firm to do that.
Lee Chalmers, the coordinator for the Northwest Arkansas Recycles Program, said he's always looking for ways to keep materials in Northwest Arkansas out of the landfill.
“Glass is something that's very recyclable,” Chalmers said.
But there's plenty of glass from bars, restaurants and liquor stores that doesn't get recycled.
“With our current situation of the landfill filling up, we think why not put that glass to better use and greater value and have it recycled and sent to become a better purpose rather than just being buried in the landfill.”
The NWA Recycles Program is a division of the Northwest Arkansas Council, a group that identifies challenges and possible solutions to those challenges for the region. The council, through NWA Recycles, is offering a pilot project to help more bars and restaurants separate glass from their trash. Working with Little Rock-based Epic Recycling, the council will pay for an introductory period of glass collection. Epic is already collecting glass in Northwest Arkansas, so Chalmers said adding more stops to existing routes should be easy. And busy bars and restaurants with limited kitchen or bar space can use that help.
Jeffro Brown, the owner of The Odd Soul on Emma Avenue in Springdale, said this pilot plan is a better plan for recycling than how it's been working in the past.
“It hasn't. It's the quick short answer there. In Springdale, there hasn't been any sort of concession for businesses to recycle. So for the most part, we just haven't.”
Brown said it's not for a lack of desire. He says the large cardboard boxes from the kitchen are deposited in cardboard recycling bins located outside the bar. And other recyclables are often taken by his employees to drop-off spots on their own time after work.
“My kitchen guys are really good about taking the tomato tins and glass jars like pickles and things come in home and putting them in their own recycling or stopping at that place on North Street in Fayetteville. That's a handy drop for a couple of my guys. So, so we recycle the best we can in the kitchen."
Brown said he's wanted to recycle from behind the bar at The Odd Soul more, but it's such a fast-paced turnover and there isn't much space. But after signing onto the pilot recycling project, it's becoming less complicated.
“But we do have a real skinny trash can now. We're putting glass in so we can take it outside and put it in Epic's can out back. I'd like to start doing that with aluminum as well and plastic. It's just if I had one little bay where I could put all four cans, five if you want to pay for two. And I just don't."
Lee Chalmers, the NWA recycling coordinator, said the pilot program exists to capitalize on that aspiration to recycle more that bar and restaurant owners have expressed. He says businesses in Washington and Benton counties, signing up to participate, get a no-cost introduction.
“A four-month period. We feel like that's a good period of time for those entities to discover and learn the benefits of recycling glass.”
Benefits, Chalmers says, that include cost-cutting and giving customers something they want.
“Their clientele like it. They’re at their favorite hangout and they know that their glass bottles are going to be recycled into something more. And then also there is a reduction in their trash cost. If a high percentage of their waste stream being glass bottles, glass jars is now being recycled and kept out of the trash dumpster. It's no longer going to the landfill and they're no longer paying for that trash disposal for that item.”
Chalmers says Epic Recycling turns the collected glass into a lightweight aggregate material that can be used in building projects. The Northwest Arkansas Council reports about 50 glass-producing businesses in the region already work with Epic and another nearly 50 businesses in Fayetteville are part of that city's business-focused glass recycling program. Jeffro Brown at The Odd Soul in Springdale says once his bar got the special bins, it started to help make diverting glass from the regular trash easier.
“You don't want to have to run out the back door every time you serve somebody and that's what we're doing for the first two or three weeks that we had the bins out back. We would just keep a pile and once you got to like five or six bottles as much you can get into hands you run out and junk them and come back. Again, that doesn't work on speed nights. Thursday, Friday, Saturday night that just didn't happen. It's fine during the day, fine on a slower night.”
“So this is making a huge difference?”
“Yep, definitely helps. And it does mean that we're emptying trash a lot less. We only have to take the trash out once or twice a day rather than four or five times.”
The Odd Soul is in the middle of its four-month cost-free period. Brown says he's eager to see if the process continues to make sense for a bar where margins can be thin and every dollar spent or saved matters.
“And I haven't seen what that number is going to be. So that's going to be a consideration. I'd like to think it's going to be affordable going forward. I know with the city of Fayetteville and their recycling program, like they sell the things on like they sell glass to who are selling them. So knowing that recycling materials can be sold leads me to cross my fingers that perhaps it won't be overly expensive. Like we're just paying for you know whatever fuel and fees for somebody to come out here and get the stuff.”
The Northwest Arkansas Council's pilot project that pays for the first four months of collection is available to 50 businesses. Interested business owners can fill out an inquiry form at nwarecycles.org before Aug. 31.
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