Municipal Recycling

The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) will be issuing a request for proposal for its 2005 District grant program. The RFP is expected to be released in October. MARC serves as the association of city and county governments and the metropolitan planning organization for the bi-state Kansas City region.

MARC awards grant money each year to assist in funding projects that promote waste reduction, reuse and recycling by local governments, non-profits, businesses, schools and other organizations.

Funds can only be awarded for projects that divert waste in Cass, Clay, Jackson, Platte and Ray Counties. Funds may be used for various programs, including education, waste reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, collection and processing, research and development and market development for products made with diverted materials.

Prospective applicants may submit an informal, one- or two-page pre-proposal to the MARC offices by noon Thursday, Dec. 2, 2004. The Grant Review Committee will review the pre-proposals to assess project feasibility and offer suggestions to improve project quality. Final grant applications are due at 4 p.m. Jan. 18, 2005, with awards to be made in March and funds to be made available by July 1.

Grants are intended to provide initial "seed" capital for innovative projects and are awarded to non-profits, local governments, businesses, schools, and individuals. For fiscal year 2004, seven grants were awarded totaling $172,633.

Local governments have received grant assistance to implement recycling programs. Two examples are Clay County, which established a paper-recycling program in its administrative buildings, and Jackson County, which is currently working on recycling plastics and aluminum cans at the Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums.

Businesses also can apply for grant funds to start or expand waste reduction, reuse or recycling programs. Businesses that have received grants include Abitibi Consolidated, Embassy Lawn and Missouri Organic Recycling.

Those seeking more information should contact Nadja Karpilow at (816) 474-4240, ext. 226, or at karpilow@marc.org.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is preparing a plan designed to abate all noncompliant tire stockpiles in the state by the end of 2010.

In developing the plan, DEC representatives visited 162 locations in the state identified as potential nuisance tire stockpiles, resulting in the documentation of 95 noncompliant scrap tire stockpiles.

The office estimates that around 29 million scrap tires are currently stored in these 95 sites. Of those sites, five of the largest offenders had a total of nearly 25 million tires, or roughly 85 percent of the tires.

The five companies are the Fortino site, West Monroe; Mohawk Tire Recycling, Waterford; Hornburg Tire, Sinclairville; New York Tire/Izzo Property, Smithtown; and Cycletech, Hudson.

In the event the DEC must assume abatement responsibility, DEC will seek beneficial uses for the tires. At the present time, DEC is developing plans to use scrap tires in road construction activities in cooperation with the New York State Department of Transportation and the New York State Thruway Authority to beneficially use the bulk of the scrap tires.