St. Louisans: Find out how to dispose of stuff with RecycleWizard.com

21 March 2022

Last week our NAPO chapter heard a program from the St. Louis County Department of Public Health about how to safely get rid of unwanted items. They introduced us to a new online tool called the Recycle Wizard. You just type in the name of a waste item and the wizard will tell you how to recycle or dispose of it.

Here’s an example for the results when I searched on Battery (Disposable):

While this is specific to the St. Louis area, I think the Recycle Wizard might be useful to people in other parts of the country who can use it to see what our community recommends in terms of whether something is safe to put in the trash or can be recycled. It’s a welcome resource!

During the program, we also learned about the Household Hazard Waste (HHW) collection sites in St. Louis County, which can be used by residents of the St. Louis County, St. Louis City and Jefferson County. Residents can drop off their HHW in the drive-thru sites during open hours (reservations are encouraged) and are limited to one drop off per day. (But there’s no limit to the number of times per year they can use the facility.) The first $50 of the disposal charge is free each trip; after that it’s $1.70 per pound. The exception is latex paint, for which there is a charge of 50 cents per pound, with no subsidy. (It’s shipped to a facility that recycles it into paint!)

The presenter on HHW, Sarah Staebell, encouraged us to try to avoid having to dispose of household hazard waste. Her suggestion was to buy only what you need, share leftovers with others and only then take the waste to a disposal site.

Tagged with: disposal, household hazardous waste, recycling