Missouri National Guard assessment of “greenness” proves encouraging

Sgt. 1st Class Joe Spencer, a facilities operations specialist, and Debra Goodman, a custodial supervisor, are among those who have spearheaded the Missouri National Guard's recycling efforts. Both work at the Ike Skelton Training Site in Jefferson City. (Staff Sgt. Chris Robertson photo)

Bill Phelan
ngmo.pao@us.army.mil

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - From his office at the Ike Skelton Training Site on the outskirts of town, Sgt. 1st Class Joe Spencer is tracking just how "green" the Missouri National Guard really is.

As a facilities operations specialist Spencer is on a mission to assess the Guard's recycling efforts and ultimately reduce the amount of solid waste that National Guard facilities send to landfills. Unlike motor oil and vehicle batteries, which the Guard has recycled for years, Spencer says there is no "official written" National Guard policy on recycling solid waste. Instead, he points to a 2009 Presidential Order directing the Department of Defense to meet a 2015 deadline to reduce solid waste sent to landfills by 50 percent.

"Obviously the National Guard falls under that directive," Spencer said.

So far, Spencer's assessment of National Guard recycling efforts in the state is very encouraging. Nearly every Guard facility he has contacted thus far has some kind of recycling program. But Spencer stresses that what works at one armory may not work at another.

"Recyclables that weigh the most and take up the most space, like cardboard, will save us the most money," he explained. "But it doesn't make sense to establish a complicated recycling program at an isolated armory where they don't produce much quantity. That's why I'm cautious about producing a state-wide policy on solid waste for National Guard training sites and armories. We have to have a policy that works and makes sense."

The goal, said Spencer, is to divert as much recyclable materials from the "waste stream" as possible. He points to recycling efforts at the Ike Skelton Training Site and at the Macon and Kirksville armories as successes in reaching that goal. At those locations recycled items are given to local sheltered workshops where the proceeds are used to fund workshop operations that employ the mentally and physically disabled.

Debra Goodman, of Jefferson City, custodial supervisor at ISTS for the past nine years, was instrumental in making recycling at the facility a matter of routine.

"I stared out with recycling cardboard in 2008 and got involved in the Missouri Integrated Recycling Committee," Goodman said. "Then we added cans and bottles and office paper. The key was to make the program easy for everyone to participate in. We placed recycling containers outside doorways and in the hallways and we didn't force anyone to participate."
Last year the Ike Skelton Training Site diverted more than 100,000 pounds of cardboard to a sheltered workshop in Fulton. The recycling program has since expanded to include cell phone batteries and turning waste paper into compost.

While smaller in scale, recycling efforts at the National Guard armories in Macon and Kirksville have been equally successful, thanks in large measure to the work of custodian Danny Magers.

For nearly 20 years Magers, of Atlanta, Mo., has been taking cardboard, paper and aluminum cans to the Macon Sheltered Workshop, a practice he brought to the Macon and Kirksville armories five years ago.

"I've been preaching recycling for years," Magers said, "but you have to go about it the right way; you have to make it easy."

While the Macon and Kirksville armories had recycling programs when Magers began working there, he "boosted" recycling efforts at both locations to include plastic, tin food cans and wooden pallets.

"My whole goal is to try and divert as much material as possible from the landfill," Magers explained. "So we're adding more bins at the facilities to try and collect more plastic and we send our pallets to the Randolph County Sheltered Workshop in Moberly where they are shredded for mulch and other products. Pretty much everything else goes to the Macon Sheltered Workshop."

Spencer hopes to increase the Guard's recycling association with sheltered workshops, but he also lauds armories that participate in city-sponsored recycling programs such as those in Trenton, Chillicothe and Rolla.

"There are many Missouri cities that help (the Guard) with our diversion rate, which leads to fewer cubic yards of solid waste, which leads to smaller dumpsters, which saves the Guard money," Spencer said. "Every pound of material that we don't send to a landfill helps us regardless of how it's recycled."

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