If you’re driving on a highway in St. Louis, what’s the phrase you’re most likely to utter? We’re not talking about “Ope, there’s the Arch!” These days, you’re far more likely to shout, “Watch out for that tire in the road!” That’s because roadside litter and debris is a problem that worsens every year, according to Michelle Forneris, an assistant district engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation who leads road maintenance and trash pickup. Statewide, MODOT spent $7.7 million picking up litter in 2022. Next year, that figure is projected to reach $9 million—a lot of cash to pick up trash. MODOT is trying to get a handle on the problem by piloting a few different trash pickups with contractors and by continuing its volunteering program, which provides about $1 million in trash-collecting labor annually. But here’s a staggering stat: MODOT St. Louis crews tracked the amount of trash they picked up along I-64, I-44, I-55, and I-70 in the month of March. The grand total came to some 2,000 tons of debris removed just from those four corridors in the MODOT St. Louis district.
To put that sobering figure into perspective, we selected some items that are commonly found discarded by the roadside here in St. Louis and—beep beep boop—did the math to see how many you’d need to make up 2,000 tons. But then we took it a step further: To illustrate just how massive the amount of trash on our roadways is, we used a new and highly sophisticated formula we’ll call ArchMath to put it in terms that your 314-ified brain will understand.
Get a fresh take on the day’s top news
Subscribe to the St. Louis Daily newsletter for a smart, succinct guide to local news from award-winning journalists Sarah Fenske and Ryan Krull.
2,000 TONS OF DEBRIS IS:
1,814,369,480
CIGARETTE BUTTS
151,197,456
PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES
226,796,185
PLASTIC BAGS
133,333
CAR BUMPERS
181,818
CAR TIRES
16,000
SOFAS
How much trash would it take to build an Arch out of trash?
THE ARCH WEIGHS
43,226 TONS
MODOT crews would need about 21 months to collect the tons of trash needed to build a Trash Arch. That’s a timeline eerily similar to the schedule of the actual Arch’s construction, which took two and a half years.
