Trash talk continues at Mount Milam in Illinois

Sheets of rain Tuesday afternoon didn't stop the ballet atop Mount Milam.

Dirt-caked garbage trucks - some from St. Louis, some from Franklin County, some from Granite City ÂÂ- still lumbered up pockmarked Bend Road off Illinois Route 203, dumping their loads of wood scraps, cardboard boxes or tin cans into a soup of muddy runoff before the debris was swept away by a yellow bulldozer.

Those who work atop this 160-foot-tall mound of trash, some of it dating to the 1950s, start this routine every morning at 4:30 and work 12 hours a day, no matter the weather. It's dirty, potentiality dangerous work. And the snake of garbage trucks stocked with tons of refuse just keep climbing up that hill.

"They never stop coming," said Bill Raynor, the operations manager who runs the landfill, sitting in his muddy pickup truck near the off-loading area Tuesday afternoon. "Not rain or snow. They just keep coming."

Welcome to the Milam Landfill, a 500-acre, 160-foot-tall behemoth just off Interstate 55-70 in Fairmont City that handles a large chunk of the trash generated in the region, from municipal trash and lawn clippings picked up along curbs to medical waste and construction debris, including some from the old Busch Stadium demolished three years ago.

Read more about the Milam Landfill at: http://stclairjournal.stltoday.com/articles/2008/03/22/news/sj2tn20080320-0320gcj-milam.ii1.txt
or
http://tinyurl.com/2e2lpf

Recycling Facts

Garbage in landfills is tightly packed and covered, preventing quick decomposition. U.S. residents and businesses generate 4.4 pounds of waste per person per day(EPA, 2001).

Missouri residents divert approximately2.6 million tons of waste from the landfill through recycling valuable resources (DNR, 2001).

Every day American businesses generate enough paper to circle the earth 20 times! (Resourceful Schools, 1999).

Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water! (Resourceful Schools, 1999).

One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year. (Resourceful Schools, 1999).


Each year, Americans throw away 25 trillion styrofoam cups. (Resourceful Schools, 1999).


The energy saved from recycling one aluminum can will run your TV for 3 hours (Smurfit-Stone).


Five 2-liter plastic PET bottles (#1) can make 1 sq. ft. of polyester carpet and an XLG T-shirt! (Smurfit-Stone)


When you recycle one glass bottle, you save the amount of energy needed to light a 100-watt bulb for 4 hours (Smurfit-Stone).
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Trash Dumping Fees Coming Under Scrutiny

Residents are requesting a full accounting of all landfill fees collected and spent from the time the fee was first established about 10 years ago. As one insider said, “You will be shocked at how much money the County has collected and how irresponsible it has spent those fees.”

It’s believed they operate this fund out of and off of the County Budget plan - so it doesn't show up as a budget item. Remember, Fees are Taxes.

Hello, County Council members!

NOTE: This information was submitted by an anonymous subscriber and is unsubstantiated. If this data is available for review, please provide the information.