Feet on the Street
The City of Bexley has received funds from the Ohio EPA to implement The Recycling Partnership’s nationally acclaimed Feet on the Street recycling education program to Bexley, in partnership with Rumpke, Good Land, and SWACO. This program is an effort to improve the quality of recycling in single-stream curbside recycling carts by providing residents personalized and real-time recycling education and feedback.
The Partnership’s Feet on the Street program is a comprehensive recycling education and outreach strategy that involves educational materials and a team of waste auditors will be visiting each household's cart and providing tailored feedback on how to ensure only accepted recyclables are placed into the cart. Together these efforts will build confidence among recyclers about how to recycle right, will reduce recycling stream contamination, and will ultimately lead to more recycling taking place.
The Partnership has successfully implemented this program in 70 communities across the country, including the Cities of Columbus and Gahanna, with some communities seeing a 57% decrease of non-recyclables in recycling and a 27% increase in the overall capture of quality recyclables.
Contact Information
Sustainability Programs Coordinator
Elizabeth Ellman
eellman@bexley.org
Contact & Location
Bexley City Hall
2242 E. Main Street
Bexley, Ohio 43209
Phone: (614) 559-4250
Program Dates
These activities will take place between October 3 and October 24, 2022.
Quick Links
PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION
What will happen?
Households will first receive information in the mail regarding accepted materials in Bexley’s curbside recycling program. On Mondays between October 3-24, waste auditors will check recycling carts city-wide for items that cannot be recycled. Carts found with unaccepted materials inside will receive a Warning Tag. In subsequent weeks, carts that continue to have unaccepted items will receive an Oops! Tag and the materials will not be collected. The following Monday morning, if the unaccepted items have been removed from the toter and no additional contaminants are present, Rumkpe will collect the materials.
CART TAGS EXPLAINED
We are targeting two overarching types of contaminants in this program – those that are harmful to the Rumpke employees, machinery, and facility, as well as those that are not accepted as part of the curbside program (ex.: paper towels, some paper plates, plastic takeout containers, packing peanuts, straws, receipts, etc.)
Too many of those items become problematic to process and ultimately end up in the landfill.
Accepted; Remove Straws
"Warning" Tag Example
Click Photo to Enlarge
"Oops!" Tag Example
Click Photo to Enlarge
WHAT CAN BE PUT IN MY RECYCLING TOTER?
PROGRAM TIMELINE
September 12
Program Information Postcard Mailed to Households
Late September
Second Mailing: List of Items That Can Be Recycled in Bexley
October
3, 10, 17, & 24
Recycling Audit Days
By End of December
Results Shared with the Community and City Council
"We're excited to further educate residents about what can and cannot go into our curbside recycling toters. This is one more thing we can do for our planet on a local level. There is no 'Planet B' for our children!"
Lori Ann Feibel, Bexley City Council
FAQ • Frequently Asked Questions
No! They're going to be opening only the recycling toter and glancing at the top for visible contaminants. At no point in time will any waste auditor rummage through the contents of your toter.
Nope! This program is purely educational. At no point in time will a resident be required to pay a fine for Warning or OOPS! Tags.
If trash, yard waste, food waste, construction material, or bagged recyclables are found, we will not service the cart.
Items that may be recyclable that we do not take:
- Plastic bags
- Styrofoam
- Batteries
- Wood
Waste auditors will begin on October 3, 2022, and will conduct weekly audits for four consecutive weeks. After the first day of the program, recycling toters will be inspected for contamination on October 10, 17, & 24.
Quality inspectors will walk the routes starting early in the morning to determine whether or not the toter is contaminated with unaccepted items. These auditors will leave a tag to indicate to Rumpke whether or not the toter should be accepted and emptied.
This depends. If the cart was not serviced because of an accidental miss, it may be emptied if you had not received a warning tag. This can be reported at bexley.org/reportamiss.
However, if you find the cart turned around with an “Oops” tag on the cart, that means there was too much contaminated material and we could not service the cart. The tag will tell you what was wrong; if you make this correction, we will service the cart on the next regularly scheduled collection day.
If trash, yard waste, food waste, construction material, or bagged recyclables are found, we will not service the cart.
Items that may be recyclable that we do not take:
- Plastic bags
- Styrofoam
- Batteries
- Wood
These are examples of materials that should not be in the cart. We will still service the cart the 1st time, but will leave a tag educating residents so they understand the error.
The Recycling Partnership has worked with many communities that have expressed concerns regarding rejecting service of recycling carts for contamination. We have found most people want to recycle and recycle correctly and the most effective and efficient way to change behavior and clean up the stream is to inspect and reject carts. All communities have seen a positive impact on the quality of their recycling stream ranging from 10-60% reduction in contamination with the average being ~40% to ~30%. The Partnership has worked with 100+ communities across the country, including state-wide initiatives in the states of Massachusetts, Ohio, and Michigan and found consistent results.
Cart rejection is ~2x more effective than education alone. We know education without curbside feedback is less effective. Communities that chose to institute cart rejection saw a greater impact and shift in behavior. Whereas, communities that chose to deploy an education only approach had less of an impact on shifting negative behavior within their communities.
Plastic bags are often mistakenly placed in recycling carts because many bags show a triangular recycling symbol. Unfortunately, these items are detrimental to equipment at the processing facility.
The best place for recycling plastic bags is often local retail stores. If you cannot take the plastic bags to a retailer, please bundle them, and place them in your trash cart.
The triangle on the bottom of a container (“chasing arrows” symbol) is a manufacturing code, but it does not indicate that you can recycle it in your curbside program. Accepted plastics are any container that would be described as a bottle, jug, or tub (such as a yogurt container or a cottage cheese container), and clear or white plastic cups. This includes water bottles, milk jugs, laundry detergent jugs, shampoo bottles, sour cream containers, etc.
The need to combat contamination and improve the quality of recyclables across the country is a high priority and challenge in light of contamination rates in single stream curbside recycling programs reaching 25-50%. Communities across the country are combating recycling contamination by committing resources to work on reducing recycling contamination with developed and proven strategies from The Recycling Partnership. This will benefit our residents and our environment, and help us meet citywide waste diversion goals, while sustaining a healthy recycling program.
Contamination costs the system time and money. Contamination increases the cost to the recycling system in labor, time and increased safety hazards. Communities that focus on contamination reduction programs can see benefits to their recycling program such as:
- Increased capture of quality recyclables
- Increased value of recyclable material
- Increased savings related to improved processing and decrease in labor, downtime and fees.