51黑料

ST. LOUIS 鈥� Mayor Cara Spencer and her streets director said Thursday they鈥檙e working on a plan to end alley recycling.

More than half of what is put in recycling dumpsters is ending up in the trash, Streets Director Jim Suelmann told aldermen at a budget committee meeting. The city is paying extra for it to be taken to the landfill. And hours of workers鈥� time are being wasted 鈥� a big problem in a department also struggling to pick up the trash on time.

Suelmann said there鈥檚 a better way: Residents who want to recycle can take their recyclables to one of the drop-off sites around the city. The recycling will be cleaner, the city will save money, and truck drivers will be freed up to focus on picking up trash.

鈥淚 promise you,鈥� he told aldermen, 鈥渋f this gets implemented, you will see no trash in alleys. None.鈥�

The remarks signaled a potential sea change in the way the city handles some of its most visible services 鈥� under a new mayor who has promised to get 51黑料 鈥渂ack to basics.鈥�

For years, the city has not had the manpower needed to cover all of the trash routes each day, sending dumpsters overflowing and complaints skyrocketing. And that, officials warned, could be leading more residents to throw trash in the blue recycling bins, which were never pristine to begin with. Still, until recently, attempts to address the problem largely centered on better educating people about what they could and couldn鈥檛 recycle, and trying to staff up the refuse division.

Newly elected Mayor Cara Spencer broached the idea of cutting alley recycling during her campaign.

She told the Post-Dispatch on Thursday her team is already looking at how the city could increase the number of drop-off sites.

鈥淲e鈥檙e working to make sure that what gets put in the recycling actually gets recycled,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about being honest with the public.鈥�

Budget committee members were supportive. Alderman Michael Browning, of Forest Park Southeast, said the city should move as quickly as possible.

鈥淟et us explain it,鈥� he said of the aldermen. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a good reason to do this. The current system is inefficient and wasteful.鈥�

Rich Iezzi, a Tower Grove South resident who made a hobby of spotting refuse trucks throwing contaminated recycling out with the trash, agreed. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a no-brainer,鈥� he said.

The city introduced recycling in alley dumpsters, which cover about 80% of the city, nearly 15 years ago, at the same time they began charging homeowners a trash fee, which started at $11 per month.

The bins were supposed to come with locking lids with slots for cardboard and holes for bottles, cans and plastic. Trash bags, officials said, wouldn鈥檛 fit through the holes.

But spot checks of dumpsters in 2018 and 2019 found the average pickup route was 27% contaminated. The average roll cart route was 43% contaminated.

The city briefly suspended alley recycling in late 2021 and early 2022, when low staffing levels threatened its ability to pick up the trash, and trash division officials said the recycling they did get, at drop-off sites, was cleaner. They assumed it was because the persevering recyclers were more committed to doing it right.

And aldermen at the time urged Mayor Tishaura O. Jones not to change things.

But collection restarted anyway, and the numbers got worse. By early 2023, officials were reporting that only about a third of recycling was actually getting recycled.

Meanwhile, the cost was skyrocketing: Where once the city could make money from recycling, it began paying more than $180 per ton to drop it off 鈥� around four times more than it pays to send trash to the landfill.

鈥淭his is not sustainable,鈥� Budget Director Paul Payne wrote in an email to Betherny Williams, the streets director under Jones, in March 2023.聽

Spencer said Thursday she hoped a change would reduce costs and clean up recycling.

The trash fee will likely stay in place, though. Current revenues don鈥檛 cover the cost of service now, she said.

鈥淲e want to make our refuse department solvent,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o, right now, the only change is being honest with people about what we鈥檙e actually doing.鈥�