Lessons from a Landfill

Before you throw trash into the garbage can at your home, do you ever think about where it goes? When it isn’t reused or recycled, then its final destination is a local landfill. Most of us have only seen these mountains of trash from a distance, but attendees at the Sept. 20 St. Louis Green Business Challenge (www.stlouisgreenchallenge.com) monthly meeting had the unique opportunity to get a bird’s eye view of the Milum Landfill, which is operated by Waste Management and located in East St. Louis, Ill. The eye-opening experience demonstrated what an important role we can all play in reducing landfill growth.

While on the trip, attendees found a number of items with the potential to be reused or recycled. These items included clothing, yard waste, plastic bags and wood scraps. If you find any or all of these items in your own possession, the following tips can help you keep them out of your local landfill.

Clothing:  Rather than throwing old clothing in the trash, consider donating it, selling it or swapping it. Organizations like Goodwill or the Salvation Army are always accepting old garments, and many will even come and pick up the clothing from you. Clothing can also be donated to homeless shelters and church charities. Garments that are gently used and still stylish can be sold at local consignment shops, yard sales, or online via websites like Ebay and Craigslist. You can also get some new duds while getting rid of old ones by swapping clothing with friends or online via websites like www.swapstyle.com or www.rehash.com. Any clothing that is no longer usable is recycleable and can be broken down and reused as anything from cleaning rags and carpet padding to rubberized playgrounds and insulation. Locally, you can recycle clothing through St. Louis city-based Remains, Inc.  Information on the organization can be found on its Facebook page.

Shoes: While shoes weren’t found on this particular landfill visit, they are frequently dumped into the trash. Shoes can also be donated, sold or swapped, and one unique way to donate shoes locally is through Shoeman Water Projects. The organization hosts shoe drives and collects new and gently used shoes from schools, churches, businesses and the general public. The shoes are exported to street vendors in places like Haiti, Kenya and South America who sell them to local residents in need of shoes. Profits generated from the shoe sales help fund clean water programs in communities worldwide. For shoe drop-off information, visit www.shoeman.org. If you have worn out shoes that are no longer fit to wear, consider donating them to the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program, which grinds down old athletic shoes to create a new material called Nike Grind that is used to make high-quality sports surfaces including courts, turf fields, tracks and more.

Yard waste: In many communities, the dumping of yard waste into landfills is illegal. Instead, subscribe to a yard waste collection service through your regular waste hauler. Composting is an even more environmentally friendly was to dispose of your yard waste. Composting is a natural process that recycles leaves, grass clippings and small twigs into organic matter that can be returned to the earth for use as mulch.

Plastic bags: We all know how many plastic bags we can collect through just a single shopping trip. Sadly, many of these bags end up in landfills, and it’s estimated that each one takes 500 years to breakdown. Luckily, there are many ways to reuse plastic bags. They make great dog waste bags on long walks with your pup, and they are also great for stashing dirty diapers when you’re changing the baby on the go. Plastic bags can also serve as the perfect reusable lunch bag. And, when you’re done using them, they can be returned to the store where you got them for reuse or recycling.

Wood scraps:  Wood waste can include scrap lumber, pallets, sawdust, tree stumps, branches and twigs. Some ideas to reuse wood waste include donating scrap lumber to a high school wood shop and using scraps in landscaping projects. In addition, wood waste that can’t be used in its original form can be processed into a variety of products including compost for soil improvement, mulch for weed control, sawdust for animal bedding, wood flour for cleaning spills, wood chips for landscaping and fuel pellets for wood stoves.

The items found on the recent landfill trip represent just a small portion of the items being dumped into our landfills every day. But, these tips show how easy it can be for all of us to reduce, reuse and recycle more.  We invite you to share your own waste reduction stories. Please share your comments below, and be sure to visit the St. Louis Regional Clean Air Partnership’s website for a host of tips designed to help you learn how to reduce waste and help improve the quality of the air we breathe.

Susannah Fuchs is Senior Director of Environmental Health for the American Lung Association of the Plains-Gulf Region and spokesperson for The Clean Air Partnership. The Clean Air Partnership aims to increase awareness of regional air quality issues and encourage activities to reduce air pollution emissions. The organization is also known for its daily air quality forecasting during the summer months. To learn more, visit www.cleanair-stlouis.com or call 314-645-5505x 1007.