2022 in Review: St. Louis City's Trash and Recycling Stunk

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VIA PAUL SABLEMAN

In St. Louis city, residents say trash trucks are combining their trash and recycling.

In 2022, St. Louis stank — often quite literally. The problems seemed to start way back in June 2021, when a worker shortage had the city throwing away the alley recycling and asking residents to bring their recyclables to designated drop-off points. (How many people actually did that? Surely not many.) Despite a $3,000 signing bonus for new truck drivers, the problem continued all the way until spring of 2022. Then-new Mayor Tishaura Jones made it a point to say that she'd bring back recycling — and she did, kind of, in May.

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Then the worker shortage seemed to shift to garbage collection. By the end of June, trash piles grew in and around dumpsters, especially, it seemed, in the city's poorer areas. The St. Louis heat and humidity made the situation even more intolerable, and residents and their aldermen complained heartily — and with good reason.

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Over time, the complaints seemed to cool without much news on how. Could things have gotten solved? Nah, with the city's Street Department recommending dropping off recycling again, it looks like we're back to throwing away those recyclables.