By Lenn Black for Simply Living
On October 23rd , 20 members of the Simply Living community took a Tour of the Rumpke Recycling Center on Joyce Avenue in Columbus. It started with a very informative slide presentation about the Rumpke program, in which there was a review of the types of items that should and should not be put into recycling containers to be sent to the recycling center. There was a question-and-answer period; the questions all seemed to seek clarification about what the Recycling Center accepts and what items need to be removed from the pre-sort stream as it enters the center.
Then we donned safety glasses, hard hats, bright yellow vests and headphones (it’s a noisy environment so communication came through the headphones) and went to the processing area. For twenty minutes, we watched a complex mechanized process by which incoming materials are sorted and packed into large bales of paper/cardboard, aluminum, glass, ferrous metals, and plastics to be hauled to the various companies that do the recycling. Rumpke supplies recycling materials to manufacturers within a 250-mile radius of its facilities; 80% of the materials go to Ohio companies, including Advanced Drainage Systems, PureCycle, Greif, Eastman, Pratt Paper, Axium Packaging, OI Glass Recycling, and Phoenix Recycling Inc.
As Ohio’s Recycling Leader, Rumpke is committed to fueling a circular economy. The Recycling Center, a $100 million investment, is the largest and most technologically advanced recycling facility in North America. It employes 60 people and employs state-of-the-art recycling equipment including four ballistic separators, 19 optical scanners, and artificial Intelligence technology. The building is 226,000 square feet total and can process 150,000-250,000 tons annually from nearly 50 Ohio counties. Processing speeds reach 60 tons per hour and expected recovery rates are 98%.
In collaboration with COSI and The Ohio State University, Rumpke developed an Education Floor featuring an interactive exhibit and research center. The elevated tour platform is 150 feet long and 45 feet high from the processing floor. This is where we returned for another extended question-and-answer session. Thank you to the Rumpke Recycling Center for offering the tour and to Simply Living volunteer Ann Marie Condo for setting it up. We are planning another tour in a few months if there is sufficient interest in the Simply Living Community.
