The Mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District aims to reduce waste in its service region, which includes Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Cooper, Cole, Howard, Moniteau, and Osage counties. It achieves this through grants, sponsorships, waste audits, collection events, education, and research.
The District grant program offers financial support to various entities including cities, counties, non-profits, businesses, schools, and individuals. Its primary objectives are to develop new or improved waste reduction programs, create or enhance markets for recovered materials, and improve the handling of items banned from landfills in Missouri. The program emphasizes conformity with the Missouri Policy on Resource Recovery, highlighting a waste management hierarchy that prioritizes reducing waste generation, reusing, recycling, composting, energy recovery, and least preferring incineration or landfill disposal. The grant targets materials with varying priorities, from consumer electronics and food waste to demolition waste and non-hazardous industrial waste, among others. Projects require a 25% match from applicants, and there is a specific provision for small project grants, limiting requests to a maximum of $10,000, excluding match, with the total request including match not to exceed $30,000.