DOWN IN THE DUMPS: SCOTT CITY RECYCLING MATERIALS TAKEN TO LANDFILL, NOT SEPARATED FROM CITY'S TRASH

SCOTT CITY -- A Scott City woman has accused city officials of deception after discovering materials set aside for recycling were actually being dumped in with the city's trash and taken to the landfill.

Tanya Davis went before the city council last month to complain that the recycling program, for which the city had received a $39,000 state grant, was not being implemented.

Scott City received a matching grant from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in July 1996 to establish a recycling project in the city. The city was given 15 months to use the grant funds and initiate the recycling program. Recycling was scheduled to begin last fall.

Although the city did construct the building and purchase the equipment outlined in the grant proposal, no recycling has ever been done.

Davis discovered that no recycling was being done after taking materials down to one of the city's two recycling trailers. She became curious when she saw the trailer being towed away with a trash truck following close behind. She followed the convoy behind a city-owned building where city workers began transferring the materials from the recycling bins into the trash truck.

When Davis asked the workers where the recyclables were being taken, she was told the materials would be taken to the landfill with the rest of the town's garbage.

"Our city is supposed to have implemented a recycling program," she said. "I recycle. I teach my children to recycle. I have taught my Girl Scouts to recycle."

The two things that disturb her most, Davis said, were that grant money and city funds had been used for a program that wasn't in operation, and that city officials continued to act as if the program was up and running when they knew that it wasn't.

"We did everything we thought was right," said Scott City Public Works Director John Rogers.

"Nobody tried any harder to recycle than I have," he said. "Then to have it blow up in your face."

Scott City's grant funding grew out of a Missouri Senate bill designed to reduce the flow of trash to landfills and to encourage recycling.

Some 61 percent of the grant -- a little more than $39,000 -- came from DNR. The remaining 39 percent or nearly $25,000 came from matching funds from the Scott City.

With the DNR funds, the city proposed building a recycling building and purchasing two recycling trailers and a bailer, which would break down and package the recyclable materials into easily transportable bails.

The city did build a public works facility, which contains equipment needed for the recycling project as well as an office for the public works director, storage space for department's vehicles and equipment, and room for workmen to repair and service the equipment.

The city also purchased the two trailers and a bailer outlined in the grant proposal, and using city funds, also purchased a forklift to be used in the recycling project.

Still, the project never got off the ground, and no recycling has ever been done, despite the fact that the bins remained in place on a city-owned parking lot for people to bring their recyclables.

"It's not easy to recycle or to get my family to do it," Davis said. "It angers me to know they were paying a kid to unload the trailer and put it into a trash truck when I could've just put it out with the rest of the garbage."

Rogers said the major problem his office had was getting rid of the product. The bailed newspaper, cardboard and plastic were in the wrong size bails to take directly to the mill.

He checked with Smurfit Recycling of St. Louis to get rid of the product, but no one would pick it up. Smurfit wanted the city to fill a tractor-trailer once a week for them to pick up, he said. The city would need three or four months to fill a trailer.

Instead, the bails started stacking up in the city building until the city made the decision to get rid of them by bringing them to the transport station in Cape Girardeau where they would eventually go to the landfill.

Smurfit General Manager Don Hughes said for it to be cost-effective for the company to pick up the recyclables, there needed to be a trailer load.

Smurfit will leave one trailer with the city or company until the trailer is full. Then it will exchange trailers. For Smurfit to loan a city a trailer, the city must produce at least one trailer load a week.

Smurfit loans trailers to Cape Girardeau, Farmington and St. Francois County, as well as for Procter & Gamble, Hughes said.

Another option cities like Scott City have is to have a live load, in which a city holds onto the materials in a storage area until it has the equivalent of a trailer load -- about 15 tons of recyclables -- then call for a trailer.

The live-load option would not require a city to have a trailer's worth every week, Hughes said, because it did not tie up a trailer.

After hearing Davis' complaint, the city council agreed to remove the recycling trailer and to put up a sign stating that, at least temporarily, the city was not in the recycling business.

Mayor Jerry Cummins also told Davis the city would pursue the recycling project and would let the public know when it starts up again.

Leon Steinbrueck, executive director of the Bootheel Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission, said his organization and the Bootheel Solid Waste Management District will work with Scott City to help rectify the situation and to get it back on track. Steinbrueck's office administered the DNR grant.

"I don't think the city was trying to shirk their obligations," he said. "They just ran into some problems they didn't know how to resolve."

At this time, Steinbrueck said, there are no plans to investigate the situation further or to seek to get the grant money back.

"We're going to be patient to allow them the time to do what they said they were going to do," Steinbrueck said.