Recycling

Tons of Impacts

Rumpke has been finding ways to recycle since 1932, when we removed rags, glass and metals from the recycling stream for reuse. Today, Rumpke is one of North America’s leading recyclers with a network of 16 recycling facilities spanning three states, including three industrial recycling facilities, a one-of-a-kind glass processing facility, as well as the nation’s largest and fourth largest material recovery facilities located in Columbus, Ohio, and Cincinnati, respectively.

In 2024, Rumpke processed about 635,000 tons, or 1.3 billion pounds, of recycling from residential, municipal, commercial and industrial accounts. To accomplish this, Rumpke achieved an 89.25% overall recovery rate. We did this through investment in innovation and expansion of acceptable recyclable items. In 2021, Rumpke made polypropylene tubs acceptable, in 2023, aluminum, paper and plastic cups acceptable, and in 2024, Rumpke began accepting thermoform clamshell containers throughout Central, Southeast and Northern Ohio.

A Hefty Lift

Rumpke entered year two of its partnership with Dow and Hefty ReNew, a program designed to allow residents and commercial customers to recycle hard-to-recycle plastics by placing them in orange Hefty ReNew bags collected and sorted by Rumpke and shipped to Hefty’s end users. In all, Rumpke processed more than 70,000 pounds of material. 

Building Better Recycling

Rumpke’s mission is to grow accessibility and trust in recycling. In 2024, Rumpke continued to do just that. Rumpke invested $106 million to build North America’s largest material recovery facility, The Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center in Columbus, Ohio. Opening in August 2024, the 235,000 square foot facility boasts the nation’s largest tipping floor, a commercial tip floor, a material auditing area, 19 optic sorters, six AI units, ballistics and trommels capable of processing 60-70 tons per hour with a 97% uptime and a 99% recovery rate.

The Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center also features a one-of-a-kind Rumpke Education Center. It’s a 3,000 square foot interactive space designed by Rumpke and the Center of Science & Industry (COSi). Exhibits walk visitors through the recycling process from point of product purchasing, to recycling at home, to the sorting process at the material recovery facility and finally, to material reuse to manufacture new products.

Recycling Materials

• Plastics: PET, Polypropylene, HDPE, Film, Ridged, Film/MSC
• Metal Cans: Aluminum & Steel
• Paper & Cardboard
• Glass
• Tires

Tonnage Growth Trend

Innovation also occurred at Rumpke Recycling Cincinnati with the installation of new X-ray technology to identify batteries and other flammable items in the recycling stream. The Visia system is about 92.4% accurate, detecting an average of 105 hazards daily, including batteries and tanks. The team has been able to safely remove about 75% of the detected hazards.

Rumpke added several new recycling facilities to its network, including facilities in Clyde and Akron, Ohio, Monroe, Ind., and Effingham, Ill.

Growing The Base

We added nearly 3,700 new residential subscription recyclers during 2024, bringing the total number of residential subscription customers to nearly 150,000 accounts.

Throughout 2024, Rumpke added almost 35,000 non-subscription recycling accounts through 23 new municipal contracts. The Rumpke team also re-signed 85 municipal contracts to longer terms.