GREG BEAVERS, Farmington City Adminstrator

Why was the center here in Farmington closed down?

The recycling center that was in Farmington was actually a privately operated recycling center for profit. They were collecting recyclables and reselling them. Due to constraints with the business they either shut down or relocated the business.

What is the city currently doing about recycling?

The city does not operate a recycling center nor do we have any mandatory or compulsory recycling programs available. The best opportunity for recycling for the residents is the curbside recycling option, offered through the St. Francois county environmental corporation. Of the five trash haulers that are licensed in Farmington, Missouri to operate, St. Francois is the only one that offers curbside recycling.

What would be some good ways to get our community to recycle?
 
I think the best ways to get our community involved in recycling are first of all to continue an education program to encourage it.  I think that we need to get active recycling programs in all of our public facilities, our schools, the churches, also as many businesses and industries that we can get involved with a recycling program, county offices, and then just encourage people to do recycling. Farmington is in a position due to the nature of our service providers in Farmington to be able city-wide or require city-wide curbside recycling because we have multiple suppliers and they don’t have the assets or the resources to provide curbside recycling. I think that opportunity is not available for us. One area where we can make improvements is to open a recycling center here in Farmington so there is a drop-off facility for those folks who choose to collect and drop it off rather than curbside. That isn’t something that we presently have in Farmington.

Would the city consider writing a grant for recycling?

Yes we would. We had put together a grant application last year through SEMO regional planning and the Southwest Solid Waste management district counsel to open a recycling center in Farmington. I don’t recall the reason but we didn’t submit the grant application for the recycling center, but the conditions haven’t changed too much and we could certainly submit that application if there is public interest in recycling.

I was wondering, do you know if maybe the state has plenty of money for this I mean I know there has got to be an “X” amount of money that is available through the state for the grant. So do you think it is very competitive? Will it be too competitive?

No it really isn’t too competitive. The way it is organized is several years ago a Senate bill, I forget the name, but there was a senate bill several years ago the purpose of which was to reduce waste in landfills. Did you study that?

I have seen it online.

There was a Senate bill, I don’t remember the name of it, but there were a couple of conditions that Missouri realized that they were running out of landfill space. So, then it was actually national that came about but, there were some federal laws passed by the EPA that you can’t put yard waste in a landfill anymore. Used to you when you raked your leaves you could bag them and a trash hauler could take that waste to a landfill. But that was taking up too much space. So yard waste can’t go anymore. The next phase of it was that there was a premium funding available in each of the states. And they have divided the states into different solid waste management district, usually managed by the regional planning commissions. This for us is Brian Balsman. They have a pool of grant money and you can do a number of things. You can do a recycling education program, set up a recycling center, and will pay you to operate them for what they cost. It will pay for the recycling dumpsters, the concrete, the fencing and those kinds of things. They’re really big on education programs.

Yes. We would do something with that.

They know they work. You know when you’re constantly putting ads out in the paper and going out and talking with the chamber of commerce and business groups. So that the opportunities to get the grant funding is not that awfully competitive.

Back to Top

Back to INTERVIEWS