ST. LOUIS — The city’s top lawmaker says the recycling system here isn’t working and needs an overhaul.
Aldermanic President Megan Green said in a recent interview she’d been told by city staff that only about a third of recycling is actually getting recycled, a rate significantly worse than estimated national averages in recent years. The rest is going to the landfill.
The problem, Green said, is that people are putting so many things in the blue bins that shouldn’t be there, like plastic bags, food waste and other trash. Those materials overwhelm the truly reusable articles and spoil the whole load. That has to change, Green said.
“Even if we’re only recycling a third, it’s better than nothing,” she said. “But we definitely need to improve on the system.”
Green’s comments were the latest on a longstanding issue that appears to have kicked into overdrive since officials reintroduced alley recycling last spring, after a 10-month hiatus, amid an ongoing shortage of Refuse Division truck drivers. The drivers struggled to pick up anything on-time and residents piled trash into whatever they could.