Columbia hopes for residents to ‘maintain habit’ of curbside recycling, though it’s being brought to landfill
Erika McGuire
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The City of Columbia says it chose to resume recycling collection to help residents maintain recycling habits without adding to their household trash burden.
Recycling drop-off centers in Columbia will remain closed and curb-side pickup resume on Monday, though all of it will be brought to the landfill. Recycling pickup was suspended Columbia after an EF-1 tornado destroyed its recycling facility on Sunday.
Columbia Utilities spokesman Jason West said one of the city’s was priorities was to keep residents in the recycling “rhythm.”
“While materials are currently being sent to the landfill due to limited processing options, maintaining these habits now will make it easier to transition back to proper recycling when better solutions become available,” West said.
“We know a lot of people are used to being used to recycling their material and we don’t want them to forget or get out of those habits so trying to get everything back to normal as possible was our first priority,” West said. “But unfortunately that landing place will be the landfill for the near future til a new solution could be worked out,”
However, West said alternatives are being discussed.
“If there are other facilities that we may be able to facilitate being taking it directly there or kind of holding it so that facility could come pick it up those are all logistics that have been, can be and will be discussed,” West said.
Columbia resident Hilary Grimm said recycling is vital for the environment and sending it to the landfill should not be a solution.
“I get the muscle memory, but it kind of defeats the purpose of recycling or supporting the recycling muscle memory if the recycling is going to the landfill it just seems ridiculous to me,” Grimm said. “Our landfill is already pretty large and I am just thinking about the fumes anyhow many things could be recycled or reused that are going to the landfill and that is heartbreaking.”
According to West, residents can put their recycling in blue recycling bags and place it on the curb. However, if a resident does not want to use the blue bags or separate their recyclables, it can be placed in their trash roll cart.
West emphasized that any extra trash bags placed next to the roll cart will not be picked up.
If you do not want your recycles to go to the landfill there are other options to where you can take your recyclables so they are recycled.
New World Recycling at 2007 Idlewood Road in Jefferson City
Gold Star Recycling at 605 Empire Dr. in Jefferson City
Boonslick Industries Inc. at 1620 W. Ashley Road in Boonville
Daniel’s Recycling at 503 2nd St. in Boonville
An insurance assessment was done on the recycling facility Thursday and found the building is a total loss, but West said that report is still “very preliminary.”
West said the focus is now salvaging equipment and that could help determine if any part of the facility’s operations can be brought back in some form but they won’t know for sure until demotion is partially complete.
According to the city, the focus now is on salvaging equipment. That could help determine if any part of the facility’s operations can be brought back in some form — but the city won’t know for sure until demolition is at least partially complete.
The city also says it won’t know how much insurance money can go toward rebuilding until a final plan for a new facility is in place.
“We have reached our county threshold. However, other counties did not reach their thresholds to help us meet the state threshold. The adjuster has no information to share on the recycling center at this point and has told the City of Columbia it maybe weeks before they have final on what will be insured,” Boone County Emergency Management Director Chris Kelley said in an email provided to ABC 17 News by Boone County Commissioner Kip Kendrick.
“At this point it is not looking good for us to get a disaster declaration under FEMA Public Assistance program,” Kelley added.
On Tuesday Kendrick said the county would need to tally more than $866,000 in uninsured and underinsured damage to get assistance. With estimates of the cost to repair the recycling facility still out, it’s not clear whether the county will reach that level.
According to Kendrick, the city’s recycling plant is insured for about $5.7 million.