Rumpke

Rumpke is expanding its list of recyclable items. Polypropylene plastic tubs may now go in your curbside recycling.

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened a crisis already facing our oceans. Thirty percent more waste is finding its way into the world's oceans and that now includes face masks and latex gloves. The coronavirus pandemic has triggered an estimated global use of 129 billion faces masks and 65 billion gloves every month.

In the interest of public health, Kenton County is suspending its "Big Blue Recyle Bin" program and is in the process of removing bins from their locations. Rumpke Recycling is continuing but urges customers to help protect its drivers.

Rumpke, in partnership with the Ohio EPA and the Recycling Partnership, is on a mission to teach homeowners what should and shouldn't go into a recycling bin. The company is now riffling through containers in Cincinnati to find out if people are following the rules. It was in Fairfield last month.

The Ohio EPA will hold an information session Thursday to talk about  a proposed Rumpke landfill expansion. At the Colerain Township Senior and Community Center the public will be able to get details about the additional 240 acres Rumpke is asking to use for waste disposal.

China is a top global importer of many of the world's recyclable materials, but the country has begun banning dozens of these goods from several countries, including the United States. The move could mean the U.S. will have to ramp up its domestic recycling program.

The company that owned those popular green and yellow paper recycling containers often found in church and school parking lots, sold off its business early last month. Now locations with the recycling bins are finding they have a problem: the bins are full but no one is emptying them.

Abitibi sold its Paper Retriever fundraising program to a corporation that has, in turn, sold the containers, and just the containers, to Rumpke.

"We ended up purchasing the containers - not the customers or the service - on October 1," says Rumpke spokeswoman Amanda Pratt.

Ohio EPA Director Scott Nally, challenged by Governor John Kasich to outcompete neighboring states for jobs and capital, points to a plan his agency used with GE Aviation to fast track permits. What normally could take up to 18 months to approve took just five months. Because it was so successful, the system of using six people instead of two to process the permit may be modeled around the state and nation.

GE Aviation's urgency

Rumpke realizes your (recycled) trash could be another company's treasure. Armed with a brand new $32 million, 100,000 square foot sorting center in St. Bernard, Rumpke is taking tons of recyclables off the street and marketing the material to paper mills and businesses that buy plastic and other goods.

Glass makes up 15 percent of what Cincinnatians throw out. Beginning this November, Rumpke will recycle it in a brand new St. Bernard facility that sits on the same site as one that burned down a year ago.

Although Rumpke will also recycle paper, plastics and metals at this facility, a big focus is on glass recycling. Very small, refined recycled glass particles are in big demand by glass container and fiberglass insulation companies.

There are eight steps in the glass recycling process: