Regional recycling efforts mirror Earth Day's 'green cities' theme

As Earth Day arrives today, recycling, reusing and environmental awareness have become more a part of life than they were when the occasion was established in 1970.

This year's Earth Day, as in past years, will focus on "the unique environmental challenges of our time," according to earthday.org. This year's global theme is green cities, and cities around the local region are doing their part with recycling efforts.

In Cape Girardeau, solid waste superintendent Michael Tripp said 4,425 tons of recycled material were collected last year. The material goes to Republic Services in St. Louis, he said. It also may be dropped off at the Republic location at 2007 Southern Expressway.

"We supply every Cape resident with a green, 96-gallon cart that you can fill with everything except glass," Tripp said. "Everything" includes plastic, newspapers, cardboard, aluminum and steel cans.

Tripp said once glass breaks, it gets into the cardboard and newspaper fibers, ruining them for reuse. So residents who want to recycle glass can drop it off at fire stations, the Osage Centre or Arena Park.

The city has offered recycling in "some way, shape or form" since about 1991, Tripp said. "It's kind of evolved. ... We went from having trailers to curb sort [recycling], where you had to separate everything to where we currently are, where everything goes in one cart except for your glass."

Two recycling trucks go out four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, he said.

"When we went from curb sort to single-stream recycling, our participation rate went up tremendously," to 4,000 residents a week, Tripp said, adding the average was 4,337 residents a week for 2013. "It's been growing each year."

In Scott City, billing clerk Starla Miller said items to be recycled are picked up by Inter-Rail Systems Inc.

"We pay for the bins. It is a free service for the residents here," Miller said. She added the program has been in place 12 years and items are picked up once a week.

Perry County Recycling Center production manager Ian Layton, whose facility has been around since 2000, said recycling also has grown in his area.

The recycling center serves all Perryville residents, a few businesses inside the city limits and schools, Layton said. Bins are on the eastern end of Perry County and in two gated communities.

On average per month, the center picks up 30 tons of material from residences, and on its business route, it takes in 10 to 15 tons a month on average, Layton said. He added he doesn't keep track of what's obtained from schools, but he estimated it was about 1 ton of paper per month.

County residents also bring items to the center for recycling.

Pickups are provided weekly, for the most part. Someone from the gated community calls when recycling retrieval is needed, Layton said.

"It grows every day," Layton said. On the city residential routes, he noted, "it's nothing to have say maybe 10 new customers every week."

The center takes newspapers, magazines, office paper, such items as water and soda bottles, milk jugs and Sunny Delight-type bottles, laundry detergent and bleach bottles, aluminum cans, tin cans, old pots and pans and glass bottles or jars of any color.

Motor oil or any type of petroleum-based oil, vegetable oil, cardboard and electronics also are accepted. The center charges for TV and computer monitors because the place they're sent to charges a hazardous material fee. But for other electronics, it's free, Layton said.

"We don't do anything with windows or mirrors," Layton said.

Glass items go to Strategic Materials in St. Louis, where they are ground up and made into new bottles.

Plastics are made into new bottles; newspapers and magazines go for blow-in insulation; office paper is made into toilet paper and facial tissue.

Kristina Hollis, recycling representative for Republic Services, said her company does residential and industrial recycling for clients such as Cape Girardeau public schools and Procter & Gamble. Residential recycling is offered in Farmington, Mo., Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Anna, Ill.

Plastic, she said, gets made into all kinds of items such as carpet and polar fleece jackets.

"We've invested quite a bit of money into recycling," Hollis said. "It's here to stay."

That's what students like Tegan Mazurek hope.

A student at Southeast Missouri State University, Mazurek is president of the Environmental Leadership Association, which teamed up with the Residence Hall Association to host "April Showers Bring May Flowers."

Participants were asked to bring a used plastic water bottle and go through three stations where they could cut off the top, put soil in it and plant a seed.

"I wanted to do something that revolved around giving something back to the Earth, like planting a tree or flowers or something along those lines. I definitely wanted to give waste a second life" and promote recycling and reusing, Mazurek said.

Her organization's aim is to promote awareness of and educate people about environmentalism, the issues surrounding it, and sustainability. It's also meant to show students what individuals and whole communities can do to make a difference, such as buying cardboard milk cartons instead of plastic.

The university itself uses single-stream recycling and has bins set up in all facilities, director of facilities management Angela Meyer said in an email to the Southeast Missourian. However, she doesn't have a record of how much is collected.

Green sales tax holiday

Missouri's sixth annual Show-Me Green Sales Tax holiday, which gives Missouri shoppers a chance to save the 4.2 percent sales tax on Energy Star energy-efficient appliances, runs through Friday, a Missouri Department of Revenue news release said.

Examples of appliances that qualify for the sales tax exemption are clothes washers, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, water heaters, furnaces, air conditioners and heat pumps.

Many local government entities also will participate in the holiday, meaning qualified purchases in those areas will be exempt from city, county and special district sales taxes, as well, the release said. For more information, visit the Missouri Department of Revenue's website, dor.mo.gov.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

2007 Southern Expressway, Cape Girardeau, MO

5193 Highway 51, Perryville, MO

12976 Saint Charles Rock Road, St. Louis, MO

One University Plaza, Cape Girardeau, MO