Raise your hand if you threw something away today.

Now raise your hand if you recycled something today.

I’m sure the majority of you reading this raised your hand for the former, but how many did for the latter?

While we continue to see recycling increase, there is still quite a disparity between the amount of material trashed versus recycled.  Our regional landfill receives on average, 6,500 tons of garbage each day. Our regional recycling center receives 650 tons of material each day.

As an industry leader, Rumpke is trying to make recycling easy, accessible and affordable.

We continue to invest in technology at our recycling facilities that makes recycling easy for participants. In the early 2000s, Rumpke adopted single stream recycling, allowing customers to mix all types of recyclables loosely in one container – removing the extra step of separating plastic bottles from paper and cardboard.

We’ve rolled out larger recycling carts to our customers, creating a greater opportunity to place more recyclables at the curb each week.

We’ve worked with municipalities and solid waste districts to place community drop boxes giving apartment dwellers and individuals that don’t have curbside recycling service a chance to reduce their waste.

Lastly, we’ve kept the cost to a minimum. Whether, recycling service is included in the cost of trash service, or it is a separate cost, we’ve kept the price low to encourage participation, despite not always being able to cover all the costs associated with offering the service.

We are working hard on our end to make recycling work, but we can’t do it alone.

Despite advancements in technology, there is still a need to separate recyclable material from trash where it is generated.  Please separate your bottles, jugs, cans, paper and cardboard from your regular trash and place it in the designated recycling container.

And to ensure we effectively process the material, please place it in your recycling container loose. Please don’t include in plastic bags.

Above all, please participate.  Recycling is a small way we can make a big impact for the environment.

About the author: Molly Yeager is the Corporate Communications Supervisor for Rumpke