Illinois expects to provide state help for many small communities that can't handle the task alone. Minnesota expects cities and counties to dispose of their own sandbags. Kevin Smith, spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said the bags will be thrown away and uses will be found for the polluted sand. The sand itself gets recycled for use in non-human contact areas. At least some of the 400,000 sandbags in Davenport, Iowa, may end up in sandboxes, however.
Officials hope to recycle many others.
Some intact bags will be moved to help build up a levee in a flood-prone area of Davenport and the contents of others will be used as filler outside the city's compost facility. Of the rest, we hope we can use them wherever possible.