Commercial Recycling is available to all businesses in Madison County. Commercial cardboard pickup is provided for a minimal fee. The savings on your disposal costs makes this very popular. The recycling industry says, "If you’re not recycling, you’re throwing it all away", but if you are a business and you are putting cardboard in your dumpster, you are not paying attention to your bottom line. Recycling commercial cardboard is economical. Madison County recycled 240 Tons of Cardboard in 2001 not including Butterball, Wal-Mart, Bob’s and Ozark Foods. That’s a lot of savings on our landfills and savings on your operating expenses.
Schools, restaurants, the nursing home and other businesses with kitchens also recycle plastic bottles and #10 steel cans. Call us if you’d like to learn more about this money-saving service.
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Workers tear into a full trailer at the Special Waste Roundup held last Saturday at the County Recycling Center and Transfer Station. Over 100 trucks and trailers loaded with appliances, steel, furniture and household hazardous waste were unloaded into containers and 18 wheelers to be recycled, sent to the landfill or sent to Haz-Mert. "This is the 8th year the County has held these Roundup’s and many folks take advantage of the free offer", stated Shirley Jackson, office worker at the Center. Forty-one volunteers helped the Center’s staff and 15 others brought food and drinks to feed the workers. Ray Nesser, John Thayer, Carey Blackwell, David Griffith, and Margie Ham worked this load and moved items to separate locations. |
All three school districts in Madison County have recycled since 1990. Students, teachers, administrators, kitchen staff and custodians recycle white paper, newspaper, mixed paper including magazines, #10 steel cans, cardboard, plastic bottles and scrap steel. Madison County has had a VISTA volunteer to help with school education and we have also had a part-time paid educator to work with students. Annually, 5th grade tours of the Recycling Center and separation of Blue Bags of recyclables on our conveyor belt really get the kids charged up about recycling. High school floats have been recycled after Homecoming for many years, chicken wire gets recycled with scrap steel, cardboard and lumber all have a place to be recycled and often brand new materials from the floats are put in the Reuse Section. Recycling units have been built into the kitchen cabinets in the Home Ec classrooms in Huntsville and in St. Paul, and students from the Huntsville East program have helped with new signs at the Center and with expanding trash receptacles around town. School recycling is a major part of our community recycling effort and schools save considerable amounts of money in avoided disposal costs annually as 40-50% of all school’s trash is recycled. Act 749 of 1991 passed by the Arkansas legislature requires schools to recycle, but it’s the efforts of many in our community who make the recycling a success.
CONVENIENCE CENTERS
Phase 2 of the Madison County Solid Waste Plan is the establishment of 5 Convenience Centers in the outlying areas of our rural County. We are currently in the process of locating land suitable for the 1st Convenience Center to be built in the south part of our County. Citizens there are 30 to 50 miles from recycling and disposal services. A Convenience Center is a staffed, fenced and secure site with a portable building, portable toilet, signage, a security light and landscaping to provide a convenient location within a community to manage solid waste and recyclables. Materials that will be taken include bagged household trash, steel & appliances, furniture and mattresses, Blue Bags of recyclables, tires and used motor oil. Items will not be accepted from Commercial haulers or from business and industry; these customers are referred to the County Transfer Station. The idea for these Convenience Centers is to expand services in sparsely populated areas where folks have never had a place to properly dispose of their trash. Convenience Centers will help reduce open dumping and open burning of Solid Waste, thus improving citizens’ health by protecting their environment and increasing property values as unsightly trash dumps on private property are cleaned up and no longer needed. Private haulers cannot afford to provide mailbox trash service in these sparsely populated areas at a price all citizens can afford. County-wide mailbox pickup of trash and recyclables will be expanded in Phase 3 of the County’s plan. Convenience Centers will continue to be used for bulky items and other waste not picked up with mailbox service. The South County Convenience Center will be open Tuesday 9:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. and on Saturday’s from 9:00 A.M. to 12 noon when it is first opened. Hours will expand as these Centers become more popular and as the business increases. Scheduled opening will be late in 2002.
COUNTY CLEANUPS
ANNUAL ROUNDUP
Since 1994, Madison County has conducted Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Roundups. Roundups have been expanded to include many items besides HHW and are held annually for one Saturday in late April or early May with the help of 40 volunteers. The Center is transformed to accommodate trucks and trailers full of Special Wastes that citizens have loaded up and brought in for recycling or disposal. This has become the event of the year for the Center. It takes all of our volunteers, plus our staff of 7-8 people to meet the demands of this event.
Items taken this day include Household Hazardous Waste, barrels of used motor oil from area farmers, furniture and mattresses, appliances and scrap steel. There is a charge for all other solid waste. The work is fast and constant and the line is long. Folks are encouraged to bring their scrap steel in everyday to avoid the wait, as we take scrap steel FREE everyday. We also take used motor oil in smaller quantities and HHW free everyday. The Roundup pushes our Center to the very limits and our volunteers’ efforts are what makes this day such a huge success. Donations are taken at the gate to help offset our costs. The Roundup hours are from 8:30 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. This years Roundup will be held April 6th.
ST. PAUL CLEANUP
The Town of St. Paul holds an annual cleanup coordinated by the Town Council and Mayor and the County Recycling Center. Though a small community, St. Paul is 28 miles from the Recycling Center and the annual town cleanup is warmly received by the town’s citizens as a convenient time to clean up the neighborhood. The County’s big overland transport brings two roll-off containers each year and two dump trucks from the County Road Department to handle the volume collected. Special Wastes are targeted for pickup as the town has weekly volume-based trash and recycling pickup. The wastes targeted include tires, batteries, steel, appliances, furniture, carpet and small amounts of construction debris. Citizen volunteers help load two tractors with materials to lift into the roll-off containers as the big truck winds its way through the town. A big luncheon is always prepared by the ladies, to help make the cleanup a great community effort and a very rewarding event.
HUNTSVILLE CLEANUP
Huntsville is where the Solid Waste and Recycling Center is located, so an annual cleanup for the City is much smaller since residents can use the Center daily throughout the year. The week after the annual Roundup, the City street department workers will pickup large bulky items for residents in the City limits. Many folks in Huntsville are elderly, or may not have a truck, and this service helps them get rid of bulky items like furniture & appliances.
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