St. Louis Is Still Dumping Recycling Into Trash Trucks, Lawsuit Says

A lawsuit filed against the City of St. Louis last week alleges that the city still hasn't resumed recycling pickups — and that it's illegally charging property owners for services it doesn't actually provide.

The suit notes that anyone who signs up for water service in St. Louis is also signed up for trash service, which comes with a $14 monthly fee. In its marketing materials, the city says that includes "single stream recycling services" for all residents.

But the lawsuit — filed by a Chesterfield resident who owns property in the city — says not only that the city suspended that program in 2021 but that it was "routinely" depositing recycling into trash trucks even before that.

Furthermore, the suit says, it has yet to resume recycling pickups.

"[T]he City of St. Louis no longer provides separate trash and recycling pickups," the suit alleges. "Plaintiff and the Class Members entered into agreements with the City of St. Louis to provide recycling services that the City is no longer providing. As a result, Plaintiff and the Class Members paid the City of St. Louis for services that they did not receive."

The lawsuit cites a Riverfront Times story from December 2022, in which residents documented seeing trash trucks pick up their recycling bins.

"The City of St. Louis may not unilaterally suspend services indefinitely for its participation in a proprietary function, yet still charge its customers monthly premiums for services it chooses not to provide," the suit says.

At the time of that RFT story, city spokesman Nick Dunne said that the city only combined recycling and trash pickups when the recycling bins had been "contaminated." But the story quoted residents who saw drivers loading the contents of the city's distinctive blue recycling bins into trash trucks without checking for contamination first.

We reached out to Dunne for comment this morning; we'll update this post if we hear back.

The lawsuit was filed in the St. Louis circuit court by Daniel Orlowsky and  Adam Goffstein. It seeks class action status for all property owners who have paid the $14/monthly fee in the past five years.

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