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Little Rock recycling station relocating after getting too many non-recyclable items

The city says dumping non-recyclable items led to more problems than one would think. They hope their new location will help with recycling efforts.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The green station on Kanis is relocating after seeing an increase in people dumping items that weren’t recyclable.

“We get so much volume here, we're getting people from the county coming up, because it's the southernmost green station,” said Brittany Nichols, the Recycling and Sustainability Program Educator with the City of Little Rock.

According to Nichols, the green station only accepts specific items.

“Glass, plastic bags, batteries, bulbs, e-waste, so anything with a cord, and household hazardous chemicals that we definitely don't want going to the landfill,” said Nichols.

However, people were not dropping off these items— instead, Nichols said that they were dropping off things they shouldn’t have been.

“Cooking oil, paints, things that can't be recycled here,” said Nichols.

This led to more problems than you might think.

“City staff would have to spend extra time every week coming and cleaning up the site before they could open on Thursday. So that was becoming really taxing for us,” said Nichols.

She added that this location is the only one in the area that had this problem.

“They all are usually located around their public works facilities,” said Nichols. “They're monitored with cameras; they have fences around them.”

Now the city is in the process of relocating the entire facility, hoping that will help with recycling efforts.

“It'll be a little bit closer to downtown and we're going to build a privacy fence and driveways and make sure that the new location doesn't disrupt any city operations, that it is more accessible,” said Nichols.

For more drop-off locations, click here.

    

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