City collects 110 tons of recycling in first 10 days of resuming weekly curbside pickup
Melissa Houston
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The City of Columbia collected nearly 110 tons of recycling materials in the first 10 days after curbside pickup resumed.
Utilities spokesman Jason West told ABC 17 News that is more than 25 tons of recycling materials that were collected during the same period in 2025.
An EF-1 tornado hit the city’s recycling facility on April 20, 2025, which led to the temporary stoppage of curbside pickup. Materials were recycled again during curbside pickup last summer, but weekly curbside recycling started again in the city on June 15.
After the tornado halted normal sorting operations at the Material Recovery Facility, Superintendent Tom Elliott said it is now back to normal operations, though weather conditions and staffing constraints persist.
“The number of people we’ve, are currently employing is less than it was at the time of the tornado,” Elliot said.
West said currently have eight employees out of the 16 spots available, making them halfway staffed. Staffing issues had caused issues for recycling pickup in 2023.
Because the tornado stripped away the structural coverage at the plant, operations are dependent on weather conditions.
“Very light rain; we’ll cover the equipment until it stops. We can do a little bit,” Elliott said. “But if it’s very much rain at all, then we button down, we tarp everything, and then we wait until we have better, better weather.”
In extreme heat conditions, Elliott said crews are still working. With there being no electricity yet in MRF, there is no place to connect any cooling devices so they must go to their neighboring buildings to cool down.
“We have cooling breaks up at both the other buildings, which are standing,” Elliott said. “They also have air conditioning, two things that this site does not currently have.”
Pick up at recycling drop-off sites were halted after the tornado hit. Right now, Elliott said there is talk of reopening the public recycling drop-off sites, but the main priority is starting construction to rebuild the plant so there is no set date on when drop-off sites may reopen.
Glass containers are still not able to be processed at the MRF due to it being considered contamination for the mills that sort and process them, Elliott said. The recycling plant also get charged for every ton of glass it sends based on the contamination rate, according to Elliott.
However, Elliott said that the city is exploring the option of making glass recycling available. He said a collection event at the Grissom Building went well.
“There is no option in the City of Columbia for glass recycling,” Elliott said. “Probably looking at a dedicated drop-off container placed for glass only.”
According to Elliott, the new facility will be constructed directly on top of the old MRF site, with the option to accommodate future expansion. He said there is no set date for when construction will start to rebuild the plant, but he estimates that it will start towards the end of this year.