John Roosa, Administrator, Boone County Landfill and Recycling, April 01, 2026

Our guest on our program today, we have the legendary John Rosa back. Good to have you back. Good to be here. Welcome to April. Happy April. Yeah, here we are. A month of April. Appropriately the first and we're on the air, right? There we go, yes. We fit right in there.

Again, the one thing I said, the beginning of April, that means Saturday. That's right. I was told hazardous waste drop-off opportunities, which come up the first Saturday of every month. Yeah, we'll kick it right off. Yeah, through what? November, right? Through November, yeah.

So we kind of coordinate it with like yard waste times and stuff, like when we start. Yard waste will start later this month. The free yard waste, I should say. Mid-April is our kickoff. This will be the 16th is when that starts up.

But yeah, with the hazardous waste, household hazardous waste collection, Saturday events start up this coming Saturday, April 4th. Bring out your oil-based paint, paint thinners, chemicals, fertilizers, cleaners, automotive type stuff a lot of times.

He's trying to think of all the different things. All the stuff that we just went to training on. Don't bring out gasoline. No? It's flammable. You have to leave the container. So it's a flammable liquid. We can take it.

We'd rather use it, but I mean, if it's really old or mixed or whatever, you're unsure. It's gasoline. It's four bucks a gallon. Yeah. But our requirement is we don't pour it off, so you have to sacrifice the container.

So beware of what container you're bringing because you're going to donate it to the cause. Yeah. But yeah, a lot of that stuff. Aerosols in particular, batteries, an ongoing issue and an ongoing discussion about getting rid of those appropriately. What do you do with them?

So bring all batteries to us. That's a time to drop it off, is with the hazardous waste as well. Yeah, we like those Saturdays. It's been a good service, I believe, to the community. A lot of people look forward to it. Some will show up and say, well, can I dispose of it?

Well, you need to make an appointment, or you want to do it just on the first Saturday of the month. You don't need an appointment. Oh, that sounds good.

So that's kind of nice to hear a little positive feedback about people appreciating the efforts on those one Saturdays a month. So the first Saturday. We will say it's not an overwhelming crowd that comes out. Use the second entrance, by the way, folks. Yep.

And someone will be there to help you out. It's a short time window, only a couple hours. Yep. But it's enough. It's not like you're lined up to the road out there or anything. It's been a slow and steady process. But it's one of them. It got the message out.

We've done it a couple years now, and it's continuing to be utilized, which is good. We see the impact on when we get to the Saturday collection event in June, that we've always done at DMACC in town here, that those numbers have dropped a lot.

And it's probably because we're already taking some of that stuff on the other Saturdays. So it's catch 22. It drops their numbers, but also it gets it out of the house at a more convenient time for folks. So it creates kind of a steady flow for you during the season.

I was going to say, if you have a pickup full, probably not going to come out there on Saturday. You might want to call in advance. We do limit it. That's a good reminder. Thank you. Yeah. We're saying three to four tots, boxes of it.

So don't bring a whole truckload if you're cleaning out a house, an estate, if you're just a semi hoarder, if you will, and time to get rid of all that stuff, you may be turned away because we are a satellite office. We just can only store so much stuff for Metro waste authority.

And if you bring out a truckload, it kind of jeopardizes everybody else being able to drop off a few things. So you may get rejected or you just have to bring in a smaller amount that day and then wait until the next Saturday and you can do some more and pick away at it.

Remember, it's always the first Saturday. So it's not every, not everyone, but, but again, you can always call and schedule an appointment too. There are those opportunities too. So yes, we have that.

I was going to say it's one of those, it's been kind of a convenience and more and more people become a little more aware of it. And you know, it's just, yeah, I cleaned off the shelf in my garage and I've got, you know, half a dozen things here. That works out pretty good.

Each time you're putting your stuff away for the winter and now you're bringing it back out for the springtime. If you're going to, you know, you put in your garage and you stored it when, when it's cold and now you're like, you know what, I've done this six times.

I wonder if it's still any good and you know, maybe it's time to get rid of it and just whatever it might be. You know, you finally decide to pull the, pull the trigger on that one and get rid of it. Then you know, it's time.

There is always, so it's kind of like those Christmas lights. Remember I said, yeah, we'll just save these for about 20 years. I'll fix them one of these days. Yeah. Someday. No, no. But I, or have they gone away? Your Christmas light receptacles.

I think they're still, we have, we've been moving. Yep. Okay. We did mention yard waste, of course, middle of the month and a couple of years ago you made that transition to limited basically Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So 16th, I think is going to be the first Saturday.

That's the kickoff for the free one this year. Yeah. So mid April, it turns out it's Thursday is the 16th. So we're starting then 16, 17, 18th, and then repeat until the end of May, Thursday, Friday and Saturday through the end of May. I don't know if all the haulers do it.

Mine had actually sent a email that said, you know, if you're interested in doing yard waste, you know, we got the bags and stuff like, and for different towns, again, because different communities operate a little bit differently.

So I know they have that opportunity and some people make use of it. Some do not. But if that's what they want to do, they can easily, I mean, you know, have their own hauler work with their own hauler. Obviously there's a charge for that. Yep. And that's not on our end.

That's for the service that they're providing. And those bags are kind of a, you know, the paper ones, I assume is what you're alluding to.

You know, every now and then we get someone that shows up with those bags and then they dump them, you know, and be like, no, you can't leave those because I mean, by the letter of the sign, you know, to say, what can you bring in here? It's stuff that you found in your yard.

You didn't find that plastic bag or the paper sack or any of that material. So we want just the stuff from your yard that naturally grew there. So not the swing set, but also not the bags, not landscape blocks. Bring the leaves, grass clippings, branches, tree debris.

You can bring some, you know, veggies and old plants and stuff that just didn't survive. That's usually the fall part. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Springtime, it's a lot of just clean up those branches that are down and things like that.

Just a lot of leaves and debris you've been raking out of your yard. And those winds that have been ripping through on a regular basis, you're rattling the loose stuff off there. So hopefully everything's fallen, but I'm sure we'll get a storm later on and get some more.

Well, let's not. Just come that way. Just come to realize that, you know, it's probably going to happen again. Just prepare for it anyway. There might be.

But yeah, you get a lot of branches, a lot of people that are raking up the yards or kind of cleaning out the flower beds and things like that. That's right. That's where you end up on a springtime part anyway. It also is a great time.

In fact, I did have I was going to actually bring it in here and throw it at you. It's about no, but I keep Iowa beautiful in their river cleanup opportunities that they're doing.

But they also are promoting, you know, all the litter pickup because we got Earth Day coming up and this is kind of one of our kickoffs on things like that. But we have Keep Boone County beautiful.

If you want to be part of cleaning up litter, there are a lot of ways you can help. Yeah. And if you have a better plan that you would like to present, I'm pretty sure you and Carrie wouldn't mind hearing about it. Yeah.

If someone wanted to put together a group for doing some litter pickup. Yeah. Anyway, we can support that. You know, we have resources available to assist with that. So you got your ideas. You know, we'd love to hear them. Yeah, absolutely.

A lot of times it's just adopt a road, but there is, you know, adopt the streets in town, I believe. And so there's other ways we can support that as well. And we glad to do that. So yeah, have ideas. Give us a call. Five one five four three three zero five nine one. Yeah.

Earth Day is coming up to, you know, your whole knowledge. Now it's April. Wow. Okay. Well, and I know like Main Street, they've done it last couple of years, do that cleanup downtown and like that. And which is, I mean, yes, we can help.

I mean, that's your, your we don't want to work. You're not organizing it, but right. We can support the efforts anyway. And yeah, if you want some, you know, support with bags and grabbers, anything we can do to help with that.

We have those things available for you to use and return and fill up your bags. We can, you know, take it then and and help you out that way. So a lot of a lot of help there. Yes. Again, part of it is, you know, people go, well, why don't you organize it?

Well, we don't have that big of a staff to organize these events. So let's talk a little bit about some of the other things that have been going on. Didn't want to get a little update again on the cardboard recycling in the office paper again, because you made that transition.

Now we're what, almost half a year or so into it. And and I know some of the scheduling getting redone every once in a while, but seems to be going along pretty well. Yeah, I think so.

There's you know, there's always those blips, those little challenges that pop up of, you know, even your best laid plans to, well, what about this person? It's always those special ones that create those opportunities to adjust and and do it differently. But it's going well.

We're diverting, you know, the cardboard away from our recycling transfer station and not putting into the semi to be hauled down to Des Moines. We haul it direct and then we're able to recoup some of the funds, which is helpful. I don't know, still cost effective.

It's you know, we're still not making money, but we're just spending less, I guess. You're avoiding. It's a cost avoidance. Yeah. So the opportunity to recycle, you know, it is a cost barrier, I guess, a problem for us, you know, but it's also still the right thing to do.

And we'll always support that going forward as least as much as I intend going forward that, you know, if we can keep that out of the landfill, let's do it. That's the right thing to do with it. Yes, it's expensive. Certainly be cheaper just to bury it all.

And that's another discussion that rolls in from that. Like if there was more incentive, maybe more people would recycle. My point being our rates are pretty low. Our garbage fees.

When you can say you can bring out 500 pounds, load up a truck and you can dump a whole lot of stuff into the, you know, into the landfill. That's pretty cheap. Twelve bucks for 500 pounds. Pretty good deal.

But the the con to that, the drawback, I guess, I would say is it's so cheap, let's just throw it all away. Who cares? They don't need to recycle. It's so cheap. Let's just throw it all away. Sometimes that's the mindset from folks.

You know, and I'm not saying we go crazy and raise the prices through the roof, but, you know, to incentivize it a little bit to say you should recycle more. Here's why.

And finally, when it starts hitting the pocketbook a little bit to say because it's going to be a little bit prohibitive for you in regards to how much you have to pay to dispose of things into the landfill, maybe we should recycle more often.

Maybe we should find more things and try to do it as much as we can instead of as little or only if it's convenient. A full blown commitment, I guess, to it. So that's some of the discussions I've had.

And, you know, we get into a budget season coming up right now and we'll be talking to the board shortly about it. By the way, folks, his budget is done separately than the overall county budget. Right. Yeah.

Ours is delayed and we wait for some DNR information, financial assurance type stuff. Anyway, we do ours in April going into for next July or this coming July. But, you know, well, the big thing is you get there. There are costs associated with it.

We call it free and it's voluntary recycling. And we've touched on this before. Could we do better if there were mandates out there? And, you know, you kind of really don't want to mandate people to. Yeah. I mean, I look back historically, OK, I'm old enough to do that.

You know, I look back at the things that they did for recycling back in the 40s. I mean, that's where the original they're back in the 50s. No, yeah, back in the 40s. That's when the original arch downtown, the downtown arch. OK. Because it got recycled for more effort.

And I mean, you know, so there it was a lot more. I mean, but more people were vested in and doing right now. It's not so much. It's yeah. And we are kind of a disposable society. Yeah. And it's all convenience based.

I when I look at, you know, the loads that come into the landfill, we have a metal recycling drop off area for the cash customers, you know, by the office there. And that's great to recoup some of that.

But I know we're missing out on a lot of opportunities when loads go into the landfill down below and it's hitting the work face. And, you know, we don't have a magnet. We don't have grapples to pick in through all the garbage. I know some landfills are starting to do that.

It became a discussion point for us to be, could we ever do something like that? Currently, I don't know. There's a lot. We're taking in too much and operationally, we probably can't do that. But it is something to consider in the future because what if we're able to do that?

And can it be cost effective to remove some of the metal to drag it off, to be recycled instead of burying it? And I know other landfills. I know one project where they went into the old landfill area and excavated and separated all the metal they got buried.

So they went to the extent to dig it all back out and separate the metal from it to then recycle it and how much airspace that saved. And that's quite the project. If we could just stop putting it there in the first place, would be much more effective.

So is there a way to do that? So I might say, so I might take it that you're not really interested in going back and digging everything up. I prefer not to know. Sometimes tires come shooting out of a mattress and who knows what else.

And you know, there would be there'd be certainly drawbacks. But my point is, let's not put it there in the first place. You know, why go back in an excavated, go to all that other extra effort to get it to where it's supposed to be.

When we see that, it's usually larger landfills. Again, it's the amount of tonnage that you're dealing with. It depends on space. If you're really restricted, which we are getting it, certainly getting into that, that, you know, how else can you save airspace?

And if you have to start excavating to remove the metal and then maybe use less dirt and you can, you know, but that's, you know, again, pretty operationally expensive to do in the process. So, you know, let's just do it better to begin with and avoid that.

Well, one of the things, at least part of what I've been following along with, because we know a part of this is we're going to end up having Story County get aims in Story County, get relocated. But they are stepping up their recycling efforts again. They're looking to.

But obviously they're spending a chunk of change to put it together. Yeah. So anyway, they are stepping that part up for us. Again, it's always been voluntary. So we're kind of at the whims of the people that are out there. The society. Are you going to?

Don't you wonder, you know, I guess I have because, you know, it's directly impactful to what we do every day. But if it's not voluntary and if it was mandated, if it was mandatory that you will and here's a cart and you'll do it, is that going to be beneficial?

I would just question. I mean, what are the impacts? What do you what do you think? You know, we could have that discussion at length, but I won't.

But we'll be the good and the bad, you know, and say, OK, wonderful, we're going to recycle more because here's a here's a cart and you're going to use it and you're going to recycle all your stuff. What's going to happen to it? Well, I don't really know what that cart's for.

It says about recycling. I'm not sure what to recycle. We'll just throw it in there. And suddenly we're going to be getting more contamination, more garbage mixed in with our recycling stream.

So there is a drawback to curbside recycling because, especially if you are given a container that looks the same as your garbage can and then suddenly they're both garbage cans because typically the regular household has more garbage than recycling. Typically.

Now, if you do it really well, you could probably make it balance out a little better than that. But there's some drawbacks to that. But yeah, you know, Ames switching from their waste energy program and now they're becoming a transfer station.

They're still going to do some of the metal recovery process, but doing some curbside recycling and how they're handling that, which is kind of interesting that here they work on a cutting edge with the waste energy program that they've been doing for 50 years.

But now that's dropped off and now we're going to the old school, the old reliable way of recycle as much as you can and then landfill the rest. And I'm glad it's not coming to our landfill that quantity. Just wanted to bring up a couple other things here.

First of all, we did have a couple of weeks ago, Scott Cruz, W.H.K.S. engineering brought forward the let the supervisors take a look at the plan. I knew you were well aware of what was being proposed. So moving ahead, looking for bids on that, I guess, at this time.

Yeah, it's in the process and it's going to be happening later this month, I guess, as far as the bid acceptance and then bid opening and acceptance and then a final approval of that process. So yeah, for the force main project on that. So that'll be happening.

That's going to be happening on the right behind that is going to be the bid letting approval or acceptance and approval for the next and final, final permitted sell at the landfill phase nine are we call it so H.O.W. engineering doing that one on the heels of the force main.

So it's going to be a busy, busy, busy year, 26 calendar year for us out there. A lot of things happening in and didn't want to bring up because I know people have heard about the city delaying their citywide cleanup thing.

The for the landfill, really, it's you're just where that stuff ends up. Right. Yeah. You're just going, you know, not my call, but you do question, you know, why are we going doing back the same thing over and over? Yeah, I do.

I 20 years, 20 year, 20 year anniversary of the community cleanup. And, you know, I think we had that discussion a few years ago, didn't we? Yeah. I'm sure that just saying, why do we keep cleaning up the community year after year after year after year?

It just seems kind of crazy that we're we're doing that now. And I don't have a lot of skin in the game, if you will. I mean, outside of us taking the stuff at the landfill.

But I know the large expense comes on the front end of it for the city to be able to go around and collect and haul and deal with it. And, you know, the burden that they have upon it is certainly more impactful than what we do. And I mean, I live out in the country.

It doesn't affect me. I'm not a resident in the city of Boone, but I just started questioning those things. And, you know, I had those conversations with the city of Boone staff to say, like, why do we keep doing this? You know, just why doesn't it seem crazy?

And then the amount of stuff that they go through. But I appreciated that the city of Boone, you know, started discussing it because instead of just, oh, here we go again, let's just keep doing it. You know, it started last year under Mayor Stein.

He brought it kind of brought up to kind of restrict on how much, you know, was put out. And then is that fully implemented? Can it be done more? And I think at least they're discussing it, which I, you know, at least talk about it.

Maybe increase awareness to it is hopefully impactful. So we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, we do have again this Saturday, of course, first Saturday of the month, that means household hazard choice collection up and a couple of weeks away from, again, the yard waste opportunity. Much anticipated. I know people aren't waiting either.

We've had a lot of it coming in already, but some are anxious to get going. Those 84 degree days and they kind of throw it. Don't get the spring get you going. So yeah, we'll make it work. You bet.

John Rosa, landfill administrator, recycling coordinator is our guest on our program. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.