City of Columbia officials detail adapting to ongoing challenges one year after tornado destroys recycling facility
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
It's been one year since a tornado destroyed Columbia's recycling facility and city officials told ABC 17 News the city is spending more money to transport recyclables than what it makes in return.
Recovery Supervisor Tom Elliot with the city's Solid Waste Division said the revenue impact is due to profit sharing and contaminated material, but operations are still within budget.
"Currently, we're getting very little value. However, it is staying out of the landfill, which is our primary objective," Elliot said.
Elliot said the facility has also seen a drop in incoming material, meaning fewer households recycling.
"For the first half of fiscal year '25 - that would have been October 2024 through March 2025 - there was just under 5,000 tons," Elliot said. "The same time period from '25 to 2026, we were right at 2700 tons of incoming material, so that's a pretty good drop."
Following the tornado the city contracted to split materials it takes in with a company in Jefferson city. The company helps Columbia's operation to bale together the materials, and the bales are shipped to a processing plant in Illinois.
The money that is sent back for the materials is then split between the two operations.
Elliot explained the city used to get the full profit back when the facility had the ability to process and bale the materials completely themselves. According to Elliot the profit is even less when contaminants are found in the bales, like glass.
"We've asked that glass no longer be put in the co-mingled recycling," Elliot said. "Most of the contamination that we were getting was from the drop off sites."
One year later, Elliot said the facility is as fully operational as it can be, but with no structure to cover machinery, its all weather dependent.
In Dec. 2025, the Columbia City Council unanimously approved the construction of a new building for the recycling site. The city expects the construction to cost $3.5 million and the funds will come from an insurance reimbursement and capital funds.
The city is now taking bids for the design and build plans of the building structure, the funds do not include any machinery. Elliot said he wants the building construction to be finished by the beginning of 2028.
