Events and News

Congratulations to Director Jack DeWitt for his recent award from the Solid Waste Association of North America - Ohio Buckeye Chapter. Jack was awarded the 2022 Solid Waste Professional of the Year Award. A well deserved award!!

The District recently completed a major expansion of the Union Recyclers Material Recovery Facility in Marysville, Ohio. The expansion included the construction of a 20,000 sqft facility and the installation of state of the art sorting and processing equipment. The expansion allows the NCO Solid Waste District to continue serving the expanding residential and business customers in the region for years to come.

The City of Sidney obtained a grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a direct engagement education and outreach campaign for the City’s curbside recycling program. The campaign ran from June 6 – July 29, 2022. The purpose of the campaign was to educate residents, that place recyclables at the curb, on how they are complying with the rules of the program. An “OOPS” card was placed on any recycle cart that contained materials that were not accepted in the City’s curbside recycling program.

A survey crew inspected each recycle cart placed at the curb to determine if unacceptable materials are contained in the cart. The OOPS card indicated what materials or conditions were observed that warranted the cart being tagged. Survey crews did not remove any materials from the carts nor did they directly touch any materials.

The success of the campaign was be measured by conducting an audit of recyclables prior to the campaign and then afterwards to see if less contamination (unacceptable materials) has been reduced. The picture to the right and below were from the pre-audit measurement of contamination.

To address the issue of high contamination, the City, with assistance from and the North Central Ohio Solid Waste District (NCO), applied for a grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) to conduct a targeted education and awareness campaign for its curbside recycling program. NCO assisted the City with the implementation of the grant which included the following key elements:

Pre-audit of the contamination found in the curbside recycling program before

any targeted education occurred (Attachment B)

2 public service announcements on the City’s website informing residents of the

Program (Attachment C)

3 rounds of curbside recycle cart inspections and tagging when carts contained

non-acceptable materials

2 newspaper ads to provide education content on the program (Attachment C)
Post card mailed to every household in the City to focus on the main (Attachment C) contamination found in the pre-audit (non-acceptable plastics and plastic bags)

Stickers placed on recycle carts indicating what is acceptable and not acceptable

in the program (Attachment C)

Post-audit of the contamination found in the curbside recycling program after all

education occurred (Attachment D)

The City and NCO believe the education project for the City’s curbside recycling program was needed. With the concentrated effort to educated and make residents aware of the issues with their source separation efforts, the following improvements and positive metrics were realized:

The amount of tags placed on carts from round 1 to round three decreased by 85%.
Overall contamination dropped by 21.58%.
Non-recyclable plastics were reduced by 27%.
Non-recyclable rigid plastics were reduced by 82%.
Non-recyclable fibers were reduced by 80%
Food waste and organics were reduced by 76%.
Loose plastic bags were reduced by 66%.