County expands waste disposal effort

From Staff Reports

This year, the Pea Ridge City Clean Up did not accept household hazardous wastes, but city residents have another option, according to Mayor Jackie Crabtree, who is also the chairman of the Benton County Solid Waste District board of directors.

Benton County officials have a recycling and waste disposal program they hope will reduce the amount of trash that is illegally dumped in the county.

"So far we've gotten 1,757 loads and we're just getting started," John Sudduth, county general services administrator, said. "I think it's going to be a great program."

The county, working with the Benton County Solid Waste District, will expand its convenience center program from a single location near Centerton to sites in Rogers and Siloam Springs to give residents more opportunities to safely dispose of household waste. The Rogers site opened in February, and the Siloam Springs center opens April 19. The county will have grand openings at 10 a.m. April 18 at the James R. Welch Recycling Center in Rogers, and at 11:30 a.m. at the Siloam Springs Transfer Station.

The convenience center expansion was spurred by the growing volume of waste and recycling material taken to annual county cleanup events. More than 2,700 loads were collected in two days in 2015. The county discontinued the cleanup events this year as the expanded convenience center program is evaluated. The county will receive monthly reports on activity at the centers, Sudduth said.

"The convenience centers are aptly named," Crabtree said. "It's going to be a lot more convenient for people on the east and west sides of the county to dispose of unwanted materials and household waste without having to save it up for a year and take it to the county cleanup. If you took it to Bentonville that was 15 to 20 miles from Pea Ridge."

Crabtree expects the expansion to be well received and hopes to spread the word about the centers so people will make use of them. Many people will properly dispose of waste materials, but some will not, he said.

"We've got a good recycle and solid waste mentality here in Benton County for the most part," he said. "We're trying to avoid those situations where people will take stuff out and dump it."

Joel Jones, justice of the peace, expects the Quorum Court to keep a close eye on the pilot program before the county's 2017 budget is done next fall. The county spent $129,292 on two countywide cleanup events and the convenience center operation in 2015, Sudduth said. The pilot program with two additional convenience center locations has a 2016 budget of $151,933.

"It looks like it's starting off well," Jones said. "I want to see more numbers and a breakdown on the amount of material we're getting. We need to compare what those places are bringing in on a daily basis to what the cleanups brought in. Not just the number of loads. That's just the number of vehicles. One load could be a car with one TV. That wasn't how people used the cleanup. They brought pickup trucks and trailers filled with stuff. The volume, that will be a big driver for me in evaluating the program."