Feet on the Street

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. 

The “Feet on the Street” program is a recycling contamination reduction program developed by The Recycling Partnership, focused on optimizing the recycling system in Bexley. The program encompasses a combination of recycling education and recycling inspection at the curb to help drive positive behavior change that will improve peoples’ understanding of what to recycle. The Feet on the Street program puts a team of people on the streets of Bexley to audit residential recycling carts for contamination, provides residents real-time feedback on the quality of their recycling through the “Warning” and “Oops” tags left on the cart if contamination is found, and delivers a broad-based educational campaign across the city to improve recycling outcomes. The City of Bexley received a grant from Ohio EPA to implement the program as part of a state-wide initiative to improve the quality of materials being sent for recycling.

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.

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 first time, but will leave a tag educating residents so they understand the mistake.

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.