SOLID WASTE DISTRICTS SEEN AS WAY OF TRIMMING COSTS

Officials from Cape Girardeau city and county hope the establishment of a regional solid waste management district will allay some of the most pressing challenges of local trash disposal.

But others fear the district, formed along with 18 others in Missouri as part of the state's solid waste law, will do little to resolve key solid-waste issues, such as dwindling landfill space and the high cost of recycling.

Cape Girardeau City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said he hopes one of the district's priorities is to study the feasibility of establishing a regional landfill owned by the seven counties that make up the district.

He said the issue undoubtedly will be "very controversial," but that a landfill is needed to help control trash disposal costs.

Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink and Public Works Director Doug Leslie said the district might also be able to consolidate trash disposal and recycling programs from the various communities and counties in the district.

Stoverink said that if the city were to continue recycling alone, particularly composting efforts, costs will rise due to the need for new equipment.

"It would take a couple hundred thousand dollars in equipment to establish a composting operation," he said.

"Another fact is the recycling center is busting at the seams. As we approach the goal of 40 percent reduction, you're going to need a larger recycling center, which would be another $150,000 to $250,000."

Doug Leslie, Cape Girardeau's public works director, said consolidation of such efforts will save on costs.

Leslie said the integration of recyclable material among several communities might also promote better markets for the materials.

"I think it could be beneficial in many ways," he said. "In composting, for example, there might be several communities in the district with one large composting area with a large piece of composting equipment.

"And with the composting equipment involved, it wouldn't necessarily be used all the time so it could be shared among various governments," he said. "That would save on costs that each city in the district would otherwise have to incur to set up an effective composting operation."

Fischer said Cape Girardeau is the only city in the district that now has an established curbside recycling and composting plan. The district includes the counties of Cape Girardeau, Perry, Ste. Genevieve, Bollinger, Madison, Iron and St. Francois.

Tom Tucker, executive director of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission, said he would like to see the district develop a coordinated plan to dispose of materials now banned by Missouri's solid waste law such as appliances and yard waste.

He also said a district-wide recycling effort could secure additional markets for recyclable material.

"You're going to have to have larger volumes to be able to market to anybody," he said. "Once you get some volume built up, then you can guarantee the product.

"The recycling companies are more liable to deal with you if you're guaranteeing the product," he added.

But Richard Sheets, senior staff associate at the Missouri Municipal League, questioned how much regional districts across the state will be able to accomplish.

Sheets said it will be difficult for the districts to organize the type of multi-county cooperation needed to make plausible the scenario of regional landfills and recycling programs.

"I wish I could say, yes, that's what they're looking at," he said. "But I don't think they're that far yet."

Sheets said the biggest concern of most of the districts has been securing a $90,000 two-year state grant to develop a waste management plan. "Of course, that's just for another plan to put on the shelf," he said. "I don't really see them accomplishing anything."

He said part of the problem is that citizens tend to be uncooperative when it comes to the issues of solid waste disposal and recycling. Also, Missouri counties generally haven't had to deal with solid waste issues in the past, Sheets said.

"What I see the counties are trying to say is, `How can we get around this bill? What's the least we can do?'" he added. "The problem is, the counties have never been involved with solid waste, and I think they're reluctant to start now."

But Tucker said he thinks counties in the Region R district of Southeast Missouri are willing to tackle the problem.

"It will be a new experience in intergovernmental cooperation," he said. "I think it can work, and it will work if we're willing to do a little give and take."

Harold Morton, director of solid waste for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said there are potential advantages in the formation of regional solid waste districts such as pooling recyclables to secure better markets and jointly funding recycling and composting operations.

He said the regional districts also will allow cities with no recycling program to benefit from the experience of cities and counties with established programs.

"By participating in a district, those municipalities that don't have any background in this can piggy-back on the experience of other cities that have gotten out there in front of the curve," he said. "It kind of offers them a hand to hold."

Morton said Senate Bill 530 requires the districts to draft a waste management plan and update the plan twice a year. He said that after the districts take an inventory of what cities and counties in the district are doing with waste, they'll have to address how to approach the issue on a regional scale, keeping in mind the law's guidelines for reducing the waste stream.

Morton said the district waste plans must address specific issues such as management of various recyclable materials, establishment of a collection system for recyclables and yard waste and implementation of a public education program on solid waste.

But Tucker said nothing in Senate Bill 530 addresses the lack of options for waste disposal. He said Region R now has only five fully operating landfills, and many of the communities in the region haul their trash to Washington County and other landfills outside the district.

But that's changing as more and more landfills are refusing to accept outside waste.

"Some of these in the district used to take outside waste, but they recognized their landfill capacity was depleting too quickly without sufficient return from charges," Tucker said.

While landfills continue to fill and close throughout Missouri, it's also increasingly difficult to site a new landfill. The process is time-consuming, expensive and politically unpopular.

But there apparently are no feasible disposal options on the horizon.

Sheets said the city of Rolla recently spent a lot of money for a trash incinerator which he said the DNR encouraged only to have other regulatory agencies shut down the operation.

"It was a case where the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing," Sheets said. "After they bought the equipment, the clean air people said you can't do that because of emission restrictions."

Morton said the regional solid waste districts must instead focus on reducing the waste stream through recycling. If that's to be successful, he added, recycling markets must improve and more manufacturers must use recycled materials.

Morton said many groups around the state already are developing ways to encourage the use of recycled material. The DNR recently received 120 applications for research and development grants for such plans.

"There's a lot of interest out there," Morton said. "A lot of projects are being developed in the private sector and by munici~palities.

"We have maintained all along that recycling and waste reduction is just one part of a big cycle. The grants that we give are aimed at increasing recycling markets."