The city of Columbia’s recycling facility was destroyed by a tornado five months ago. This presents a unique opportunity for the city to reinvent its recycling program. The question that city officials are still discussing is “How?”
Remarkably, the technology was unharmed in the storm, but it’s still 25 years old and will most likely need replacing, said Utilities spokesperson Jason West. Recycling advocates argue successful recycling doesn’t rely on technology alone.
Promise shown in a different city
Located just west of St. Louis, in St. Peters, Missouri, is Recycle City, a material recovery facility that opened this summer. St. Peters is one of only three municipalities in the country with this state-of-the-art technology. The waste comes mixed together, with sorting done by humans, machinery and AI. St. Peters officials conceived and built this facility in 13 months, at a cost of about $11 million . That’s half the cost of some estimates for the Columbia rebuild.
Recycle City Manager Elliot Schneider pushed for this new facility, as trash piled up in landfills near the area. Schneider said the investment wasn’t just for technology.
“Education is the most important piece to recycling,” Schneider said. “It's far deeper than just putting it out at the curb and picking it up.”
He said the recycling process doesn’t start at the sorting or even pickup. It starts when someone asks if they should throw waste in the trash or the recycle bin.
Schneider and his team posted information about the new recycling program everywhere they could — social media, emails, mail and newspapers. But a small percentage of residents still weren’t recycling properly. So, Schneider’s team wouldn’t pick up the cart.
“It is almost guaranteed that they are going to call you, and then we could have those conversations,” Schneider said. “Many times I went out there and talked to them myself and said, ‘Hey, you just can't do this, and this is why.’ And we never saw that problem from them again.”
Since Recycle City was built, recycling participation has risen from 20% to nearly 90% in a matter of months. More than 90% of the materials are able to be recycled and sold, which is better than the national average, according to advocacy group The Recycling Partnership.
Communications in Columbia
Columbia Utilities spokesperson Jason West said Columbia already does a good job educating the public through social media, emails and work done by volunteer specialists.
Volunteer specialists host events throughout the community, such as the Family Fun Fest at Cosmo Park.
There, children dig through a sandbox for cards with pictures of varying items. The children then choose which items should go into which bucket — compost, recycling or trash.
The event also presents an opportunity to educate adults on the city’s current recycling guidelines, which have updated since the facility's destruction.
But about 6,500 tons of recyclables still went to the Columbia landfill last year. About two-thirds of that could have been sold to markets. West said this is because some people just don’t want to recycle.
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force the horse to drink the water,” West said. “That’s really where we have been.”
However, volunteer specialist Jody Cook disagrees with West about how effective the city’s communication has been.
“I'm out there giving proper messaging, but I'm not always supported in the messaging from the other end,” Cook said, “And that's because it's complicated.”
Up to 35 tons of materials were dumped into Columbia’s recycling facility every day, but more than a third of it would end up in the landfill.
What's next
West said plans for Columbia's new recycling program are still in discussion. Recycle City’s Elliott Schneider said even though Columbia needs to put up a new building, he’s not sure why some estimates to rebuild the infrastructure have come in above $20 million to replace the old technology, which was somewhat out-of-date compared to modern standards.
“We already had a building. Our building was not taken down by a tornado,” Schneider said. “I’m sure there’s a cost associated with that, (but) that number, to me, seems pretty damn high.”
Until Columbia officials rebuild, thousands of tons of recyclable material will continue being thrown out each year. Recycling advocates said the city must be careful not to throw away an opportunity along with them.
