On Wednesday, March 11th, I had the privilege of attending the Arkansas Recycling Coalition’s Spring Recycling and Sustainability Summit at Virco Manufacturing in Conway, AR. The distinguished speakers offered up presentations chocked full of information that should be of interest to our friends across the region.
Katherine Benenati, chief of the Public Outreach and Assistance Division (POA) of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) led off the event by describing the array of business services offered by ADEQ. Information is available on their website.
Katherine also covered the topic of tax credits for the purchase of recycling equipment. These credits are good for up to 30% of the price of equipment and installation and can be filed up to three years after purchase. Also of interest was the availability of ADEQ e-waste grants. ADEQ distributes some $2.7 million in e-waste dollars. While $2.5 million is distributed through Arkansas’ 18 solid waste districts, $250,000 is made available directly through ADEQ. This money is typically distributed in $50,000 and $100,000 blocks.
Ken Boucher of the newly-established Greenway Recycled Paint also gave a talk about their program. Greenway is willing to provide latex paint collection boxes anywhere in the northern half of the state and pick up full boxes on request at no cost to the collector. Greenway encourages recyclers to contact the company concerning the opportunity to host paint drives in their communities.
Mr. Boucher emphasized that their products are comparable in quality to leading paint brands such as Valspar, and retail at $10-$12 per gallon versus the $27-$30 paid for leading store bought paints. Paint will be available in 1 gallon cans, 5 gallon pails, 55 gallon drums, and 275 gallon totes. For the Greenway program, paint should be collected in its original form, and cannot be processed once it has dried out.
The Summit also featured a talk by Randy Pierce of Goldman Recycling in Little Rock, who projected an uptick in OCC prices within the next 60-90 days based on the resolution of dock issues on the west coast and of course the pending restart of International Paper’s idle line 3 at the containerboard mill in Valliant, OK. Mr. Pierce also expects that plastic markets will remain consistent with current levels as long as oil prices are low.
Our market analysis suggests that last fall’s spike in plastics was an exception rather than the rule, and that current plastics pricing, with the exception of the soft PET market, are more indicative of healthy demand. What this means for our customers is that increasing volumes of bottle-grade plastics and continuing to investigate potential markets for plastics #3-#7 will be instrumental in increasing overall facility profitability.
On the issue of plastics #3-#7, QRS Recycling’s Craig Jung presented his company’s approach to profitable #3-#7 recycling. Mr. Jung explained that QRS, established in 1974, has seen great results in their innovative process of collecting and packaging of plastics. QRS is operating what they call PRFs (plastic recovery facilities) on the east coast and now, to the benefit of Arkansas recyclers, as far west as St. Louis.
These PRFs take only mixed plastics and through an integrated approach sort and process all grades into washed flake, complete bales, and pelletized plastics. Their product is touted as 99%+ clean. Their process requires mixed plastic bales to contain no more than 10% contamination. Mr. Jung insists that bales contain no Styrofoam or wood and says that metals (such as aluminum and tin cans) in limited quantities are acceptable. We at ORE hope to visit the QRS facility soon to provide our customers with a more complete overview of QRS’s processes and goals so we might find a stable home for the mixed plastics collected here in Arkansas.
Our friend Tim Lewellyn of the West River Valley Regional Solid Waste District in Clarksville, AR delivered a spirited update of his district’s progress in tire recycling. Mr. Lewellyn shared that their 10 mesh crumb rubber turf fill product has been reviewed as having the highest purity rating in the industry. The district reported that 1 million pounds of their 10 mesh product was sold in the year 2014 and that once production has caught up, the district has the production capacity to handle yet more tires than the 30% currently being received in the state of Arkansas. ORE is hard at work finding interested buyers for the 20 mesh product that is ideal for multiple applications including highway resurfacing. With the help of our friends across the region, we hope to increase sales volume and further strengthen the state’s greatest ally in tire recycling.
Stephanie Liechty of Central Arkansas Water followed with a presentation on what her organization is doing to strengthen the area’s natural resources for the next generation, including strict guidelines for employees on recycling and vehicle idle time. Central Arkansas Water has also been pursuing sustainability campaigns for finding water leaks and encouraging residential and commercial water audits to identify and discourage waste.
The summit concluded with lunch provided by Whole Hog Café and tours of the Virco facility. Arkansas Recycling Coalition encouraged attendees to register for their upcoming area and statewide events including the Mid-Year Recycling and Sustainability Summit on May 14th in El Dorado, AR, the Summer 2015 Recycling and Sustainability Summit on July 16th in Mountain Home, AR, and the 25th Annual Recycling and Sustainability Conference being held in Little Rock September 30th-October 2nd.
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