ST. LOUIS — Alderwoman Cara Spencer, who is running for mayor, suggested Tuesday that the city should change how it handles residents’ recycling.
Spencer told people at a Boulevard Heights neighborhood meeting that the current approach isn’t working: Only about a third of what’s put into recycling bins has actually been processed in recent years. The rest, littered with plastic bags, food waste and other trash, has gone to the dump.
Meanwhile, processors have started charging more to process recycling, leaving the city with less money to pay for trash pickup, which has been inconsistent in recent years due to staffing shortages.
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Spencer suggested the city move to a system that allows people who really want to recycle to do so, and focuses on picking up the trash for everyone else.
She said such an “opt-in†system could have recyclers take materials to one of the drop-off sites in the city instead of having truck drivers pick it up in alley bins. The city did something similar in 2021 and 2022 when low staffing levels threatened its ability to pick up the trash, and trash division officials said the recycling they did get was cleaner.
“It’s not my favorite solution,†Spencer said, “but the reality is that what we’re doing right now is not working.â€
Conner Kerrigan, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, declined to comment directly on Spencer’s remarks.
Jones ignored similar calls from aldermen after she reintroduced recycling in late spring 2022. The additional work combined with truck problems and a seasonal surge in demand to overwhelm the trash department, leaving dumpsters untouched and overflowing for weeks. Crews started working seven days a week to catch up, and still do.
Kerrigan noted that the city recently partnered with ºüÀêÊÓƵ University on a project putting sensors into alley dumpsters to measure their contents and track where the recycling ends up. Kerrigan said the idea is to home in on where things are going wrong and figure out how officials can help.
“We want more things to get recycled, but those contaminated bins cause so many problems,†he said. “People at every level have to be more conscious of it.â€