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Trash for Trees founder pitches $7,200 pilot to remove hundreds of bags of litter per ward
Summary
At the July 8 committee meeting, Aaron Dohan of Trash for Trees described five years of volunteer litter pickups in St. Louis and proposed a $7,200 pilot (at $15/hour) that he said could remove roughly 560 bags in one ward; committee members praised the work and discussed logistics and partnerships.
Aaron Dohan, founder and director of Trash for Trees, presented the volunteer group's five‑year effort to the Public Infrastructure and Utilities Committee on July 8 and proposed a pilot program to scale paid crews.
Dohan said the group tracks each item it collects and reported "we've picked up over 1,000,000 pieces of litter" since 2022 and "about 1,700 bags of litter, 33‑gallon sized bags" overall. For the most recent year, he said the group recorded about "176,000 pieces of litter" over roughly 480 volunteer hours and said that equaled about "306 pieces of litter per hour." He told the committee that pairing volunteer crews with a small paid crew could increase reliability and reach.
Presenting a budget example, Dohan said, "At $15 an hour, it cost about $7,200" to staff a pilot crew that would pick up about 560 bags in one ward. He offered scaling scenarios: roughly $21,000 to cover three wards and about $100,000 to implement the model across all 14 wards (estimates intended as illustrative). Dohan also cited a national Keep America Beautiful study and used its per‑person figure to estimate citywide litter volumes.
Dohan described operational partners and logistics: a recurring partner (Bounce Back) and director Andre Cole who supplied paid crew members (paid about $13/hour in Dohan's experience); dump routing coordinated with the city (North Side Dump for large loads, South Side Dump for smaller), and ad hoc opportunities to load city refuse trucks. He recommended concentrating crews in single neighborhoods (alleys and school zones), collecting before/after photos for accountability, and using social media to show results.
Committee members responded with support and operational questions. One member asked whether U‑Haul and dump fees were included in the $7,200 figure; Dohan said they were not and that the $7,200 estimate is a baseline likely to rise with additional costs. Members mentioned potential city assistance (matching refuse routes, use of city trucks) and possible grant or ward capital funding to support pilot efforts. Several members praised the group's community impact and offered to help connect the program to aldermen, city staff and potential funders.
Dohan named local partners including OpenSpaceSTL, Beyond Housing, the Aquarium Foundation and said realtor Ana Garcia of Garcia Properties had been a consistent private funder. He closed by offering further support to roll out a pilot and the committee moved on without taking formal action on a funding request that day.
