SGF Mayor issues challenge to reduce waste and recycle

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — In 2019, Springfield was able to expand the Noble Hill Landfill.

"In 2019 that gave us a 100-year lifespan," Ashley Krug with the city said.

However, things have changed.

"It's six years later and we're down to 50 to 75 years. So that estimate of 100 years was based off of the tonnage that we have exceeded by a lot. If we continue to see trends of our waste coming in at that rate, we're going to see that lifespan really shrink down," Krug said.

Mayor Ken McClure has now issued the 'Clean Green Springfield Challenge' to Queen City residents.

McClure says Springfield is one of the only cities in Missouri that has their own landfill, meaning if it's full, the city will have to spend money either expanding it again or paying to have waste taken to other areas.

"I'm optimistic people in Springfield respond to challenges and that's been my experience, not only during my time in public office, but before that. I think if the citizens of this community are issued a challenge, they see the need and the responsibility that we have as a community," McClure said.

"70% of what could have been recycled ended up in the landfill," Krug added.

Clean Green Springfield will have opportunities in the spring for those interested including volunteer litter pick-ups, 'Neat Neighborhoods' competitions, neighborhood cleanup schedules and citywide beautification projects.

McClure says while this is his last year in office, he doesn't consider these efforts part of any 'legacy'.

"I don't know that I would call it a legacy, but I would call it a challenge, a challenge to the community. I'm uniquely situated to be able to issue that right now. It's, you know, you look out and say, you know, what's an area where we can have an impact? If I can lend my voice to it and that's worthwhile," McClure said. "2026 is a key year, Route 66 centennial. We've got the World Cup coming in to Kansas City. We've got all kinds of interest in people that will be coming into our community. We've got to put on our best face."

Krug says there's already online tools people can use to help reduce waste.

"Our Dish to Dirt program actually is comprised of two different pieces. We have a home composting program where citizens can take a class with us and we give them a home composter. That's going to be how they can divert food waste in their own backyards, and they're really popular. We've had about six years of that class and seen 700 people go through it. People are composting in their backyards. We expanded that to a drop off program for food scraps at our recycling sites. There are certain things that we don't want to compost in our own compost systems, things like meat and dairy. Even your leftovers are not really appropriate for our home composting perspective, but at our industrial facility that we operate, we actually can take those items, and so now citizens can bring those to our recycling sites. We take them to our composting facility and turn that into a usable soil amendment, which is a wonderful program," Krug said. "Now, our other program is the Waste Wizard. The Waste Wizard is a searchable database, and you go to the waste wizard and you type in the item that you would like to recycle, and it's going to let you know if there is a resource for you to donate it or to recycle it within our community."

Dana Burnich is like many recycling at the Lone Pine Recycling Center.

She welcomes the challenge and believes recycling helps.

"We've been recycling for quite a while now. We need 10-15 years, and the reason why we do it, I feel like it's the small part that we can play in helping the environment instead of just growing landfills. I feel better about recycling it," Burnich said. "I think it would be a great idea."