Staff at Montauk won second place in the Show Me Challenge back in December with their new recycling program. According to a Dec. 14 release from the Missouri Commissioners Office, the Show Me Challenge was inspired by the television show Shark Tank. The competition brings "together state team members from across Missouri’s 16 executive departments to pitch solutions that improve services to the citizens of Missouri, cut out unnecessary bureaucratic work, and/or save the state time and money."
A goal that Kim Todey, the deputy director of the Ozarks Region, said that Montauk achieved. Their new plan has saved the park over $3,000 in trash transport costs since it was implemented in the 2020 camping season and has seen a 13% return on investment with the new recycling model. From July to September 2020, Montauk campground staff collected a total of 3,580 pounds of recycled materials.
In 2020 through an Ozark Rivers grant, Montauk purchased a trailer so they could better manage their recycled materials, like cardboard, paper, glass aluminum and plastics. Aluminum cans are sold locally with proceeds put back into the recycling program to pay for gas and recycling supplies. Plastics and other materials are dropped off at the Rolla Recycling Center.
Todey said that Montauk State Park Specialist Lori Cody noticed that the dumpsters in the park were often overflowing, so her and other park staff spearheaded figuring out a solution, which came to fruition as the Recycle Rally in Parks from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Missouri Office of Administration.
Their second-place winning proposal was to implement a statewide campground recycling program that increases convenience of recycling for campers, and thereby reduce waste going to landfills. This campsite specific model is fairly simple, in 2020 Montauk began providing their visitors with recycle bags that they could fill during their stay at the park and leave for park staff to retrieve after they had left; one for trash and one for recyclables.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has developed a recycling playbook based on the Montauk model. A playbook that Todey says, both Stockton and Echo Bluff state parks plan to implement in 2021. There are 40 Missouri State parks. Todey hopes that in the years to come each of them will be able to implement new recycling programs by utilizing the playbook inspired by the Montauk model. However, not every park is logistically in a position to save money through these sorts of reforms. While Montauk and others have enough staff and are in range of recycling locations and can make these sorts of changes to benefit everyone involved, that is simply not yet the reality for every Missouri State Park.
In addition to the improvements already being made at Montauk, the Ozark Rivers Solid Waste Management District Executive Committee recently allocated 2021 funding for up to $6,500 for Montauk State Park to purchase a baler for processing recycled materials. Being able to bale recyclables should save even more money in transport costs as each load will be much more densely packed, making fewer trips necessary.
“I think that some of the money that DNR has allocated to recycling costs should be used for additional research and development of recyclable materials,” says Dent County Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles, who is the vice-chairperson of the Ozark Rivers Full Council and who has advocated for waste reduction and recycling in Dent County.
Todey said she views this program as a great success. Not only saving the park money, but also making it easier to take better care of the park.
"It takes a lot trust in your staff to achieve something like this, it's not a small feat," said Todey, calling the park staff the real heroes. She said that it takes everybody to do it, the staff and visitors to the park as well.
"The response from the public was phenomenal," said Todey. She thinks that's largely due to how simple park staff has made it for them.
