By Cristian Romero
The Scene staff
St. Louis Community College has thrown away hundreds of desks, chairs, filing cabinets and other items from the Forest Park campus in the past few weeks, including some in good condition.
Facilities workers stacked it on the loading dock before hoisting it into semi-trailers.
“The items in the containers are surplus items that couldn’t be used by the college,” said John Duarte, lead maintenance manager for STLCC.
“Following board policy, once it’s determined there is no use for items in the district, the school makes attempts to find other organizations that could use them. If those attempts fail, the items are thrown away.”
That seems wasteful to Songhai Crittenden, 19, a Forest Park student who plans to major in electrical engineering.
“There’s multiple things you can do with the furniture, like donating it to homeless shelters or the Salvation Army,” he said. “And I believe the furniture can be reused.”
Forest Park practice regarding disposal of unwanted furniture and equipment has changed over the years.
In the late 2000s, facilities employees took it to a warehouse leased by STLCC, just east of campus. Faculty and staff could scavenge for items before the college held a public sale.
“The lease on the warehouse ran out, on top of the college running out of money,” Duarte said. “The college decided just to no longer keep the warehouse, as the cost of business was outweighing the profits.”
After STLCC vacated the warehouse, surplus furniture and equipment were stored in a large room in the basement of the Forest Park campus.
Faculty and staff continued to scavenge for items needed in their offices and classrooms.
“Afterwards, we got a recycling contractor (Midwest Recycling Center) that would pick up all our surplus,” Duarte said, noting that the company didn’t charge extra to throw away what couldn’t be recycled.
“The electronic equipment we would dispose of it properly under the Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Whatever electronic Items we couldn’t dispose of, we would sell through government websites.
“As of recently, Midwest Recycling Center no longer recycles furniture. We have so much surplus, we typically sell most of our furniture through gov.com.”
Marquil Ar’non, 16, a student who wants to get a law degree, said he doesn’t care if Forest Park throws away furniture and equipment because he didn’t pay for it.
Tanya Carr, 48, a Campus Life employee, understands that items in poor condition needs to be thrown away.
“But I do think they should notify staff on that because some of our furniture is not in the best of shape,” she said. “… It would be nice if we were made aware so we could go through the furniture and possibly use it.”