Sustainability: Community Engagement

Environmental Education

Awareness is key to ensuring not only recycling success, but lifelong sustainable practices that will benefit generations to come. Rumpke knows this and uses a variety of resources to further educate, raise awareness and encourage collaboration and assistance to make our world a better place today and tomorrow. Learning is growing, and Rumpke employs a full-time education and outreach team to meet students young and old wherever they are on their environmental learning journey.

Seeing is Believing: Facility Tours & Events

People ages 10 and up are encouraged to participate in Rumpke facility tours, presentations or events, and in 2024 thousands of people did just that!

Rumpke hosts Recycling Round-ups for the municipalities and solid waste districts it serves. In 2024, Rumpke hosted six of these events, attracting 30-40 representatives per event. At the round-ups, participants heard recycling updates, presentations from some of Rumpke’s end users and took facility tours. Roundup guests left with electronic toolkits featuring educational materials to promote recycling and proper disposal. Toolkits included videos, photos, social media posts, blogs, news releases, newsletter copy and web content.

Scholarships

Tomorrow’s leaders need today’s support, and Rumpke helps students pursuing two- and four-year degrees, as well as technical certification or military enlistment, with scholarships. In 2024, Rumpke awarded 38 community and employee scholarships totaling more than $70,000.

Rumpke also has a robust tuition assistance program for qualifying employees.

Facility Open Houses

Attracting nearly 1,000 guests in all:

• Brown County Landfill Open House
• Medora Landfill Neighbor Night
• Noble Road Landfill Open House
• Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center
• Rumpke Sanitary Landfill Open House

Total Grand Openings

Four grand openings attracting 50–200+ guests each:

• Covington Transfer Station & Maintenance Facility
• Montgomery County Landfill Gas to Energy Plant
• Rumpke Citizen Convenience Center
• Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center

Rumpke Fans

Rumpke established a Rumpke Fan Club to engage fans in the goals, work, environmental progress and innovation of the solid waste and recycling industry. Members receive a membership card, t-shirt and newsletters about the industry, recycling and sustainable practices. By 2024, the Rumpke Fan Club was about 3,000 members strong and counting.

Digital Download: Web, Social Media & Email

We never doubt the impact of digital communications in today’s society. Therefore, Rumpke makes a strategic effort to use the power of the web and social media to reach our online audiences with information about recycling and sustainability.

In 2024, Rumpke shared 815 education-based social media posts, reaching over 450,000 individuals and generating nearly 481,000 impressions. These posts achieved 43,520 engagements, reflecting the audience’s strong interest in recycling tips, sustainability efforts and general waste education.

Watching Recycling in Action: Video

Rumpke posted 94 recycling-related videos throughout 2024, generating 289,018 impressions. These videos were watched 27,848 times, totaling 721 hours of viewing. Top-performing content addressed pizza box recycling, cup recycling, material preparation and tire recycling.

Rumpke’s Education Destinations

Rumpke has been offering tours and educational presentations for nearly 30 years, but in 2024, we decided to level up in a big way. We brought in some outside experts to help us execute more than just recycling facts, figures and information. We tapped experts from our region’s most well-known and highly respected children’s museums, the Cincinnati Museum Center in Cincinnati and the Center for Science and Industry (COSi) in Columbus, Ohio, to imagine, design and build interactive learning exhibits about recycling.

The Rumpke Recycling Truck Exhibit, Cincinnati

In October 2024, Rumpke partnered with the Cincinnati Museum Center on a new interactive educational exhibit. The replica rear load truck puts kids in the driver seat and allows families to have meaningful conversations about what can and can’t be recycled. As part of the exhibit, visitors sort through material and determine if it is accepted in Rumpke’s recycling program. The back of the truck also features information about the benefits of participating in recycling.

The Rumpke Education Center, Columbus, Ohio

With thousands visiting Rumpke sites annually, we have a tremendous opportunity to leave a lasting impression. With this in mind, we teamed up with the COSi exhibition team to plan an emergent journey through the recycling process. As guests enter the Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center—a must stop is our Education Center. Once inside, the first stop is the marketplace where you shop for items in the most recyclable package. During checkout, selections are scored for recyclability. Next stop is home where you play an interactive video game designed to test knowledge about which items are trash and which items are bound for the recycling bin. Traveling deeper into the exhibit, guests are greeted with a full scale model of the material recovery facility where you place a puck over various sections of the plant to watch a short video about each piece of equipment. Speaking of the equipment inside the material recovery facility, other exhibits in the Education Center give guests a chance to operate mini trommels, an eddy current and optics. The experience concludes with real-life, 2,000-pound bales of cardboard and cans, a look at end uses for each commodity and some key facts about environmental and economic impacts of recycling. Combine Rumpke’s educational exhibits with a tour, and visitors leave the Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center with knowledge they can reuse and recycle for the rest of their lives!

Spreading The Word: Mailers & Media

Customer emails and digital outreach aside, Rumpke also communicates recycling updates through more traditional platforms. For example, Rumpke reached tens of thousands of recyclers through more than 100 direct mailers in 2024. Rumpke actively pitches stories about recycling to reporters to further spread the word about the benefits. of recycling. Rumpke recycling information appeared in just over 900 media stories reaching about 4.8 million people and generating a corresponding market publicity value of approximately $16 million. Rumpke facilitated recycling awareness campaigns through participation in podcasts and in radio broadcasts. Paid advertising on social media, television and radio also boosted awareness.

Rumpke Cares: Corporate Giving

Every year, Rumpke donates time, talents and treasure to support efforts to clean up our communities or provide much-needed resources and support to those in need. In 2024, this specifically included partnering with local food banks to supply or deliver food. It meant adopting families in need during the holidays and supporting local schools to help them fund field trips, enhance facilities or maintain programs. Rumpke assisted throughout the year with state-initiated tire cleanups, as well as multiple individual community cleanups. The Rumpke Cares group, an employee led team of corporate and Cincinnati team members, painted local park equipment and assisted with necessary yard work.

Rumpke is especially proud of its Business Partners in Education involvement with the Northwest Local School District in Colerain Township, Ohio, near Rumpke’s headquarters. Through the program, Rumpke adopts three schools and sets aside funding for their projects and field trips, offers in-school presentations, touch-atruck events and student career experiences.

To me, sustainability means leaving the Earth better than we found it. We need to make informed choices today to protect and preserve the planet for tomorrow. It’s about empowering future generations with the knowledge and tools they need to continue moving progress forward in a responsible and impactful way.

– Hannah Hengehold, Education & Community Relations Specialist

A Proud Partner: Organization Memberships

Whether it’s Rumpke as an organization or Rumpke team members, we are actively engaged in several organizations that promote sustainability in our communities and industries. Here is a sampling of our team’s involvement:

• National Waste & Recycling Association
• Solid Waste Association of North America
• The National Recycling Coalition
• Glass Recycling Coalition
• Ohio Circular Economy Round Table
• Ohio Township Association
• Association of Ohio Recyclers
• Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission
• Indiana Recycling Coalition
• Kentucky League of Cities
• County Commissioners Association of Ohio
• The Ohio State Sustainability Institute
• The Ohio State Center for Operational Excellence
• University of Cincinnati Lindner Alumni Council
• University of Dayton Hanley Sustainability Institute
• Ohio University, Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment Board
• Columbus Partnership
• Keep Cincinnati Beautiful
• Green Umbrella
• The American Society of Civil Engineers
• Public Relations Society of America
• Cincinnati CIO Roundtable
• The Circuit - IT Executive Circle
• Multiple Chambers of Commerce throughout our service region
• Countless other professional, industry, and civic organizations