St. Louis Pulls Plug on Pilot Recycling Program
The City of St. Louis has pulled the dozens of 300-gallon recycling dumpsters it had placed in alleyways last March out of commission. Jill Hamilton, the city’s recycling program manager, said the program was never intended to be permanent.
Rather, it was considered a pilot program, serving about 3,200 of the city’s 147,000 households, to see if the economics could make a full, permanent effort viable. The answer is: apparently not. Or, at least, not right now.
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As a St. Louis city resident, I wasn’t even aware that there were some wards which had been supplied with recycling bins. I once happened across one in the Soulard neighborhood while riding my bicycle up an alley just for a different view on my commute home from work. The next day I even took my wife over there while walking our dogs so she could see it. It struck us as a novelty and, I suppose, made us wonder if a new dawn was breaking in St. Louis. And, so soon, and without getting to ever use such a program (it was not offered in our neighborhood), it’s gone.
The good news — well, hopeful news, anyway — is that Hamilton says this isn’t the end of the city’s effort to implement convenient recycling opportunities. “We’re still looking for that proper way,” she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In the mean time, there still are 27 recycling collection centers around the city, such as the one my household continues to use at Jefferson and Pestalozzi, by the fire station. That center has continued to upgrade its bins, and add new ones in the last couple of years. There are six total, to accommodate paper, cardboard and commingled containers.
One of the views in the Post-Dispatch’s story, and some comments left online by readers, were talking about how the loss of the recycling bins have made recycling too inconvenient again and so those particular St. Louis residents won’t be recycling.
I figure there are 27 recycling collection spots around the city: Isn’t that enough to get the job done until the city finds the surplus of funds to cater to us?
Where there’s a will there’s a way. So, what I wonder is, why is there still a deficit of will?
