O'Fallon has taken great strides to make it easy for residents to recycle. The city provided curbside recycling service and the containers, switched to single-stream recycling, which made it easier to dispose of recyclables by combining it together, and offered more things that can be recycled.
With the August waste management reports, only 18 percent of waste materials are recycled. About 70 percent of materials can be recycled.
A lot of recyclable materials are thrown in the trash such as soda cans, plastic bottles, cereal boxes, paper towel rolls and cardboard. With single stream, you are not required to tear off labels from tin cans, plus plastics No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are now recyclable.
Many things are made out of recycled materials such as plastic lumber, fleece clothing, playground equipment and house insulation. O'Fallon pays approximately $27 per ton to haul trash to the landfill, but is reimbursed $15.15 per ton for recyclables. If more residents recycled, it would be easier to keep the service fee at an affordable rate.
Recycling saves energy, conserves natural resources and extends landfill life. Approximately 12 years ago, Missouri had 100 operating landfills. Today there are 22. Landfills are not the solution to disposing waste. Recycling is the solution.
If you have to throw it away, throw it in the recycle container. If you have the time to shop around for items, take time to figure out what to do with that shopping bag and any other packaging items you intend to dispose of.
Maybe people are just waiting for the day when they can witness their children being faced with environmental issues that affect their daily lives, such as water shortages, clean air to breathe and bizarre weather to contend with.
