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Residential Recycling Infrastructure Analysis

Purpose

This analysis evaluates the District’s existing residential recycling infrastructure to determine how that

infrastructure is performing in relation to the goals and needs of the District and residents of Hamilton County.

Definitions

Non-Subscription: Residents in these communities do not have to sign up and pay separately for curbside

recycling service. They may pay a separate, combined fee for waste and curbside recycling, for example on their

water bill, or the community’s general fund may pay the expenses of the program. Non-subscription

communities include those that contract with the private sector on behalf of residents and those that collect

curbside recycling with community staff.

Subscription: Residents subscribe independently for waste and recycling services. Residents in these

communities subscribe with the waste hauler of their choice and can also choose to subscribe for recycling

services. Residents pay their waste and recycling haulers directly for the services.

Drop-Off Recycling: A community places one or more drop-off containers in the community to which residents

bring their recyclables (often contracted with private sector).

Pay-As-You-Throw: Pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) or volume-based waste programs have residents incur a cost for

producing more trash. For example, residents would purchase a sticker per bag of waste or would be provided a

small container and pay extra beyond the base service. These communities have high recycling participation

(which is no additional cost) and have high recycling rates.

Residential Waste and Recycling Overview

Hamilton County has a strong overall residential recycling infrastructure. Over 98% of residents have access to

curbside recycling collection, roughly half of the communities offer non-subscription recycling, and there are 64

recycling drop-offs located throughout Hamilton County.

In 2014, Hamilton County residents landfilled 238,504 tons and recycled 40,350 tons for a county-wide

residential recycling rate of 14.47% (not including separate yard trimmings). Figure 1 depicts the historical tons

recycled by residents of Hamilton County from 1999 to 2014.

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*2013: Rumpke Recycling improved accuracy for calculating recycling drop-off tonnage leading to a decrease in reported

residential tons recycled.

In 2012, the District conducted a characterization study of residential waste entering Rumpke

Sanitary Landfill. Figure 2 shows the breakdown of material entering the landfill from residents. Of

this material, 40.9% is easily recyclable given the existing recycling infrastructure in Hamilton

County and 22.5% could be composted by residents using backyard composting methods.1

Paper, 31.70%

Other, 2.50%

Textiles, 8.20%

Plastics, 21.40%Metals, 3.70%

Glass, 3.80%

Organics, 19.20%

Electronics, 1%

Yard Trimmings,

7.20%

C&D Debris, 1.10% HHW, 0.20%

Figure 2: Hamilton County Residential Waste Landfilled

1 See Waste Composition Study Summary of Results. Hamilton County Recycling and Solid Waste District, presented by SCS

Engineers (2012).

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Residential Recycling in Hamilton County

Forty-eight political subdivisions fall within the Hamilton County Recycling and Solid Waste District and each city,

township, or village chooses their community’s waste and recycling programs. Since inception, the District has

not mandated types of waste and recycling programs.

There are three basic recycling programs for traditional commingled recyclables (see Figure 3):

1. Non-Subscription:

• 26 communities have non-subscription based recycling.

o 2 self-haul recyclables with community staff.

o 24 contract with a private hauler.

• 10 communities contract for waste services only and allow their residents to subscribe

separately for recycling

(see #2).

2. Subscription:

• 20 communities have

subscription based

recycling.

• 11 are townships.

3. Drop-Off:

• 2 communities offer

drop-off recycling with

no curbside option.

• 28 communities offer

drop-off recycling.

• 64 drop-offs total.

Communities with non-subscription based recycling tend to have higher participation than the communities with

subscription-based recycling. The primary barrier in subscription-based recycling programs is that residents must

sign up and pay an extra cost (generally about $3 per month) for recycling collection. Many residents do not

wish to pay the extra cost and choose not

to recycle. We have learned through

focus groups and conversations with

residents that they feel they are doing

something good by recycling and do not

understand why recycling should cost

more. All residents pay for recycling,

either in their taxes or by a fee assessed

separately, but charging a voluntary,

separate fee drastically reduces

participation in recycling.

Figure 4 compares the average pounds

recycled per resident for subscription,

non-subscription, and drop-off only

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communities in Hamilton County in 2014. Non-subscription based communities achieve the highest pounds per

household, followed by subscription communities, and then communities with drop-off recycling only.

Table 1 compares the 2014 reference year infrastructure with the infrastructure listed in our current approved

plan with a 2009 reference year. The non-subscription based recycling programs have remained constant with

one community contracting for recycling and another community switching from contracted recycling to

subscription-based recycling. Recycling haulers have added and maintained subscription-based recycling service

in four communities since 2009. Six additional communities now host recycling drop-off locations and the

number of total drop-offs in the county has increased by 18 locations.

Table 1: Residential Recycling Infrastructure 2009 vs. 2014

2009 2014

Non-Subscription Curbside Recycling Communities 26 26

Subscription Curbside Recycling Communities 16 20

Communities with Drop-Off Recycling 22 28

Commingled Recycling Drop-Offs 46 64

Communities with the following attributes and programs tend to achieve the highest recycling rates:

• Contracting for curbside recycling services or self-hauling recyclables.

• Using large, lidded recycling carts.

• Having more affluent residents and/or more well-educated residents.

• Maintaining PAYT waste programs or some limitation on waste set out.

• Collecting residential yard trimmings for composting instead of landfilling.

Two communities (Madeira and Mariemont) in Hamilton County have a pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) or volume-

based waste program, where residents either purchase a sticker per bag of waste or are provided a small

container and pay extra beyond the base service. Both of these communities have high recycling participation

(which is no additional cost) and have high recycling rates. Currently, all residents in communities with curbside

recycling have access to carts for recycling. All but three communities allow residents to set out an unlimited

amount of waste.

Figure 5 shows the hierarchy of residential waste and recycling programs based on the programs that result in

the highest diversion rates.

Figure 5: Hierarchy of Residential Recycling Programs

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Drop-Off Recycling

Twenty-eight of the communities in Hamilton County offer commingled recycling drop-off sites. These drop-offs

generally consist of one or more 6-yard recycling containers, clearly labeled for recycling, in a central location

such as a community park or government building. These drop-offs accept all of the same materials residents

can recycle curbside with the same capacity to commingle materials (no need to separate).

Recycling drop-offs provide an important free recycling option for residents in subscription areas who choose

not to pay extra for curbside recycling or who live in multi-family dwellings without access to curbside recycling.

They are especially popular in subscription recycling areas. Fifteen of the 20 communities with subscription-

based recycling have a free recycling drop-off option.

Multi-Family Housing

Most communities offer curbside recycling service to residents living in buildings with four units or fewer. Some

communities, such as the City of Cincinnati, work with larger buildings to provide access to recycling; however,

the larger buildings are considered commercial properties and thus do not qualify for residential service. A

separate analysis will be conducted on multi-family recycling.

Residential Recycling Incentive (RRI)

The District’s primary program to improve and maintain residential recycling infrastructure is the Residential

Recycling Incentive (RRI) program. The District budgets $1,050,000 annually (more than any other program) to

divide among participating communities. As a community increases its recycling rate, it receives more dollars per

ton recycled. Forty-six of the 48

communities participate regularly.

Table 2 outlines the tier levels of RRI funds

available. Communities must spend RRI

funds on recycling or waste reduction

related expenses such as a curbside

recycling contract, recycling drop-off costs,

community leaf collection, or recycling

promotion.

Target Community Program

The District has historically worked with several communities each year to improve recycling infrastructure and

participation. This process involves meeting with the community, developing a plan for outreach, and then

implementing that plan. These efforts involve significant technical assistance helping to draft bid specifications

to improve recycling access and marketing to improve participation in the curbside recycling program.

Materials Collected

The materials collected in curbside and drop-off recycling programs are almost completely dependent on what

materials can be accepted at Rumpke’s Material Recovery Facility in St. Bernard. At present that list includes:

1. Plastic bottles and jugs

2. Glass bottles and jars

3. Aluminum and steel cans

4. Paperboard

Table 2: RRI Tier Levels

Recycling Rate Approximate RRI Dollars per Ton

Greater than 30% $34

25% - 29.99% $30

20% - 24.99% $26

15% - 19.99% $22

10% - 14.99% $18

5% - 9.99% $14

0% - 4.99% $10

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5. Office paper

6. Newspapers and magazines

7. Phone books

8. Paper cartons

Residents often ask about non-bottle plastic containers, such as yogurt cups, which are currently not accepted in

curbside or drop-off programs.

Contamination of recyclables is a significant issue and becomes problematic at the material recovery facility. In

the second period of 2014, Rumpke Recycling (the dominant recycler of residential recyclables in Hamilton

County) reported that 7.44% of the residential recycling stream was not recyclable. Contamination costs

recycling processors time and money, can cause significant damage to recycling equipment, and may negatively

impact the value of the recyclables.

Residential Recycling Promotion

Residents have access to information about recycling opportunities through a variety of methods as follows:

1. Sticker or brochure when cart/bin is delivered.

2. Community website, newsletter, and/ or welcome packet.

3. District website, direct mail, and paid advertising.

4. Take-home information from school programs.

Residents often access information about recycling from their local community and the quality of this

information varies by community. Some higher performing communities ensure residents receive information in

a welcome packet, regularly include articles about recycling in community newsletters, and post helpful

information prominently on the community website. Many communities could use assistance on the

information available to their residents.

The District budgeted $35,000 in 2014 for general outreach and awareness, which included billboards, radio,

and online advertisements, as well as a direct mailing to our target community.

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Gap Analysis and Solutions

A. Improving Drop-Off Recycling

1. Add a Drop-Off Recycling Option: The following communities have subscription-based recycling but no

free drop-off recycling option within their community:

• Village of Addyston

• Village of Arlington Heights

• Village of Elmwood Place

• Miami Township

• Village of North Bend

Interestingly, all of these communities also contract for waste collection but not recycling. Access to

recycling options could be improved in these communities by placing a recycling drop-off.

� The District could work with these communities to make the case for siting a recycling drop-off

(cost, RRI revenue, resident need), find a location for the recycling drop-off, and provide

complementary signage and help with promotion. The District could fund the drop-off for one

year.

2. Increase Drop-Off Capacity: Some communities that offer drop-off recycling struggle to maintain

enough capacity at the most popular drop-off locations. Even with two or three pick-ups a week and

many containers, staff from these communities (such as Green Township and Delhi Township) have to

visit the sites and manage the overflow. These communities could benefit from more drop-off locations,

more containers at existing drop-offs, or contracting out for curbside recycling to reduce reliance on the

drop-offs.

� The District could encourage communities to have more drop-off sites or provide technical

assistance to contract for curbside recycling.

3. Improve Drop-Off Signage: Many communities could benefit from better signage directing residents to

the recycling drop-offs since they are not always visible from the road.

� The District could provide complementary drop-off signage to communities.

4. Improve Drop-Off Placement: Residents may be encouraged to use recycling drop-offs more if the sites

were located at popularly visited destinations such as grocery stores and schools. Allowing schools to

use the containers might make them amenable to providing the space for a drop off.

� The District could encourage communities to work with schools or grocery stores to site new

drop-offs.

B. Improving or Implementing Curbside Recycling

5. Upgrade from Drop-Off to Curbside: Two communities (City of Cheviot and Village of Lockland) have

community collected curbside trash programs and offer recycling drop-offs for recyclables. Both of these

communities have dense urban neighborhoods and could drastically increase recycling participation and

tonnage collected by offering a curbside recycling program. Making recycling as easy as trash collection

has proven effective at increasing participation. These communities could either contract out the

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recycling service or develop the infrastructure and staff needed to implement a curbside recycling

program themselves.

� The District could offer technical assistance and support through this process.

6. Upgrade from Subscription to Contract: Twenty communities in Hamilton County offer subscription-

based recycling, which has lower participation than community-collected or contracted recycling

programs. Ten of the 20 communities with subscription-based recycling contract on behalf of their

residents for curbside waste service. These communities could include curbside recycling in their next

bidding process and start offering this service to their residents the next time they go out to bid. The

other 10 communities that only have subscription service available could improve recycling participation

by contracting out both waste and recycling service for their residents.

Contracted Waste and Subscription Recycling

• Village of Addyston

• Village of Arlington Heights

• Village of Cleves

• Village of Elmwood Place

• Village of Greenhills

• Village of Lincoln Heights

• Miami Township

• Village of North Bend

• City of Reading

• Village of Silverton

Subscription Waste and Recycling

• Anderson Township

• Colerain Township

• Crosby Township

• Delhi Township

• Green Township

• Harrison Township

• Springfield Township

• Sycamore Township

• Symmes Township

• Whitewater Township

� The District could offer technical assistance and support through this process.

7. Implement Pay-As-You-Throw: Encouraging communities to adopt a volume-based system could

increase their recycling rates. Even when the fee is low, residents are more aware of what they throw

away and can see a financial gain by throwing away less. PAYT programs also benefit elderly residents

and others who generate lower volumes of waste.

� The District could offer technical assistance and support through this process.

Other Programs for Improving Curbside Recycling: The District could implement a number of programs

to encourage communities to improve or implement curbside recycling.

� The District could host workshops on contracting out, PAYT, etc.

� The District could create sample and easily customizable bid specifications.

� The District could encourage consortiums for efficient use of resources.

8. Target Lower Performing Communities. Communities with low recycling rates often lack the internal

resources to improve recycling infrastructure in their community. The District could choose to work with

select communities every year with low recycling rates to improve the available recycling infrastructure.

This would align with the District’s current target community approach.

� The District could work with the community to establish goals, assist creating bid specifications,

help site a recycling drop-off, or offer other technical assistance as needed.

9. Implement Single Fee for Waste and Recycling. The primary barrier to recycling for residents in

subscription areas is choosing to pay the extra cost of curbside recycling. If all haulers agreed to offer

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recycling at no additional charge (combining the cost of recycling and waste into one figure), then

residents would have access to recycling at no apparent extra cost. This would maintain the

subscription-based service but make recycling a standard service. Warren County implemented a similar

program and communities with subscription-based recycling now achieve the same recycling rates as

non-subscription communities.

� The District could work with subscription recycling communities and waste haulers to develop a

county-wide policy.

C. Modifying the RRI Program to Encourage Program Improvement.

Since 2007, the RRI program has used a recycling rate tier system to award communities a dollar-per-ton

incentive for recycling. The RRI program could be modified to encourage communities to adopt a program

that would create more diversion. The District is scheduling meetings with communities to discuss changes

to the RRI program. A separate, detailed analysis on the RRI program will be available in September.

10. Modify the RRI Program:

� The District could change the tiers to focus on program type (non-subscription, PAYT,

subscription, etc.) versus recycling rate.

� The District could change the tiers to a per capita measure instead of recycling rate to give more

dollars to lower performing communities.

� The District could include organics recycling.

� The District could include materials collected during reuse events.

The last two program modifications would encourage communities to adopt or maintain more organics

collection and reuse events.

D. Expanding Promotion of Recycling

Many communities lack the resources to implement full-scale recycling promotion campaigns encouraging

their residents to recycle. The District executes a county-wide awareness campaign annually but could work

more specifically with communities to promote recycling to their residents. Recycling promotion does not

directly improve recycling infrastructure but it does encourage increased participation and interest in

recycling.

11. Encourage Community-Level Promotion. Highlight the process of recycling in a community recycling

promotion toolkit and host a tour of the material recovery facility at the kick off. Include magnets and a

video of the facility if possible and incorporate normative behavior tactics. The toolkit could include

tools for improving recycling information available on community websites and tips for implementing a

grassroots outreach program.

� Create Community Recycling Promotion Toolkit.

� Enhance District’s county-wide recycling advertising campaign.

12. Offer Incentive to Subscribers: A large barrier for residents in communities with subscription-based

recycling service is deciding to pay the additional cost for curbside recycling. Once residents get into the

habit, they will likely keep the service.

� The District could offer to pay for the first three months of recycling for these residents.

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E. Improving Access to and Awareness of Textile Recycling Infrastructure

According to the 2012 Waste Composition Study, 8.2% of the waste Hamilton County residents landfill is

textiles. This high percentage occurs despite a rather robust infrastructure for textile reuse in Hamilton

County consisting of Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, and Salvation Army, as well as consignment shops such as

The Snooty Fox. Many of the textile reuse outlets have multiple drop-offs and some will even pickup

material at a resident’s home.

The District identified two primary gaps in textile reuse and recycling. First, residents may be unaware that

convenient textile outlets exist, and may be unaware that some organizations like the Salvation Army will

even pick up the material. Secondly, many residents are unaware that unwearable or unusable textiles, such

as those ripped or stained, can still be recycled into other products. Some of the organizations collecting

textiles also want the unusable materials for textile recycling.

13. Promote Textile Recycling. Promotion could be on the District’s website or as part of the annual

marketing campaign.

� The District could promote all the types of textiles that can be recycled and what outlets exist.

14. Implement Curbside Textile Recycling. Staff could work with textile recyclers and communities to

implement or publicize an existing curbside collection program. A community in Cuyahoga County, Ohio,

is currently piloting the curbside collection of all textiles in bags separate from other curbside

recyclables. If the infrastructure were available, this could be a useful service to increase residential

recycling. The District has already taken the step of including textiles as an acceptable material for

communities to claim on their RRI applications.

� The District could work with textile recyclers and communities to implement or publicize an

existing curbside collection program.

Conclusions Although the District has a strong existing residential recycling infrastructure, Hamilton County has not realized

the full potential waste diversion from the residential sector. Of the waste residents currently landfill, more than

40% can still be diverted for recycling given the local outlets available. This analysis identified the areas of

infrastructure improvement that could work to increase recycling participation and diversion.

The primary focus of the suggestions for infrastructure improvement involves making recycling more accessible

and attractive to residents of Hamilton County. The District knows which types of residential programs yield the

best results, so these suggestions work to upgrade communities into higher performing recycling programs.

Some suggestions could easily be implemented immediately, whereas others would require more funding, staff

resources, and policy changes.

Table 3 summarizes the narrative discussion presented in this appendix.

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Table 3. Summary of Potential District Actions to Address Identified Gaps

Infrastructure Improvement

Suggestions Gap Addressed District Program

1 Add recycling drop-off No free recycling option in 5

communities Technical assistance and funding

2 Increase drop-off capacity Overflowing drop-offs Technical assistance

3 Improve drop-off signage Residents unaware of drop-off

location

Technical assistance and

complimentary signage

4 Improve drop-off placement Residents not using inconvenient

drop-offs Technical assistance

5 Upgrade from drop-off to

curbside

Lower participation for drop-off

only Technical assistance

Workshops

Sample bid specs

Consortiums

RRI modifications

6 Upgrade from subscription to

contract

Lower participation in

subscription communities

7 Implement PAYT Potential for decreasing waste

landfilled

8 Target communities

Communities often lack internal

resources to improve

infrastructure

Work with 2 target communities

every year

9 Incorporate single fee for waste

and recycling

Lower participation in

subscription communities

Work with subscription

communities and haulers to

develop policy.

10 Modify RRI to upgrade

community recycling program

Lack of incentive to change

recycling program

Change tiers to program type

Change tiers to per capita

Include organics

Include reuse

11 Encourage more community-level

promotion

Some communities lack resources

to develop recycling promotional

materials

Create community toolkit

More robust county-wide

advertising

12 Offer incentive to subscribers Lower participation in

subscription communities Subscriber incentive program

13 Promote textile recycling

8% of residential waste landfilled

is textiles

Promote textile recycling

14 Implement curbside textile

recycling

Technical assistance and

promotion

RRI modification

Questions for Policy Committee � Do you agree that Hamilton County has a strong residential recycling infrastructure?

� What are your priorities?

� Are there programs you would like staff to investigate further?

� Should the District work to implement a county-wide policy shift as in Suggestion 9 or work with

communities on a more individualized basis?

� Would the Policy Committee rather staff focus on infrastructure improvement or recycling promotion?

� Should the District focus specifically on textiles?