Recycler collects attention
Posted on Monday, June 30, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/230133/
HORSESHOE BEND — The idea for an award-winning volunteer recycling program in Izard County was sparked by a California Boy Scout project 25 years ago.
“We went around picking up stuff,” said Paul Sulser, 79, who was once a Scout camp director in rural California north of San Francisco. “That gave me the idea.”
In 1998, Sulser placed a box in the corner of a Horseshoe Bend park so people could drop off aluminum cans.
Ten years later, the recycling program has grabbed statewide attention.
Sulser and his crew of volunteers collect more than 100 tons of plastics, cans, cardboard and newspapers a year at a distribution center, and many say the program has converted the town of 2, 278 into environmental consciousness.
In April, the city won the Arkansas Environmental Stewardship Award, a yearly recognition bestowed upon organizations for environmental efforts.
Sulser’s project beat finalists Tyson Foods Inc., Plum Creek Timber Co. in Crossett, the Fayetteville wastewater treatment plant, the Molex Inc. connector plant in Maumelle and the Green Forest poultry processing plant.
“[Sulser’s ] program was best suited for the award,” said Kelly Robinson, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Environment Quality, which has handed out the annual award since 2005.
The state recycles nearly 2 million tons of materials yearly, an Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism Web site says.
“We were impressed with such the drive he had,” she said. “He, alone, was instrumental in all of Horseshoe Bend’s recycling. Not all [award ] applicants were of this magnitude.”
The trophy, a glass-carved replica of the state, is displayed in City Hall.
“It’s is one of the biggest things that’s ever happened in Horseshoe Bend,” Mayor Bob Barnes said of the honor.
Sulser moved to Horseshoe Bend, a retirement center perched along the Strawberry River, from California in 1991. He was a retired U. S. Postal Service employee in Rock Island, Ill., and had lived in California since the late 1980 s before moving to Arkansas.
In 1997, Sulser was elected to the Horseshoe Bend City Council. He asked then-Mayor Chuck Mowder if he could start a recycling program.
“I made a presentation,” Sulser said Wednesday at his distribution center next to Horseshoe Bend City Hall. “I guess it went well. We had no idea how to set this up.”
Mowder approved the plan and Sulser set up the recycling box for aluminum cans at Garden Club park.
A year later, he moved the operations indoors, renting a vacant space in the town’s strip shopping mall for $ 75 a month. Proceeds from the recycled materials paid for the rent, he said.
Then, in 2002, he applied for a $ 16, 000 state grant to build his own building.
That grant and one to purchase a forklift to hoist the plastics and metals into transfer bins were approved.
Now on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Sulser and other volunteers meet at the metal building on Commerce Street that serves as his recycling center. On those days, residents drop off their recyclable items.
Inside, volunteers sort the plastic milk and water jugs from soda bottles and aluminum cans, tossing them in various bins. Sulser has 25 volunteers.
“They joke that we get paid for doing this,” Betty Curtis said. “But we don’t. We believe in it.”
The Wednesdays and Saturdays are considered “social events” by the workers. Volunteers can catch up with friends who stop by, Curtis said.
On Wednesday, talk turned to Bob Taylor, a former Horseshoe Bend employee who was bitten twice within a year by rattlesnakes.
“He almost died from that,” Sulser said. “But he’s doing well now.”
Taylor was one of scores of people who dropped off a carton of materials Wednesday.
The collected items are taken to the Independent Environmental Services landfill in Cherokee Village, where they are weighed. The landfill serves Izard, Fulton and Sharp counties.
Sulser receives payment for the materials and puts the funds back into his program. Money from the sale of aluminum cans goes to the city’s Garden Club, of which Sulser’s wife was recently president.
“He’s been at it since day one,” Barnes said of Sulser. “He started out with zero, and he’s brought it to this.”
Michelle Grabowski, a Horseshoe Bend Municipal Court clerk, wrote a seven-point letter outlining the recycling program that said other cities could duplicate Horseshoe Bend’s if they “have the passion our volunteer’s exhibit.”
She also noted that the city sends fliers to residents and places articles in local newspapers about environmental concerns.
The town now intends to participate in the state’s Green-Fed program, a statewide project to recycle obsolete computer equipment.
“The program has made a tremendous difference with our landfill,” Barnes said.