City of Cincinnati Launches Enhanced Recycling Program

This week begins the first phase of Cincinnati’s enhanced recycling program. 25,000 residents received new, 96-gallon or 64-gallon recycling carts, complete with wheels for easier transport and a lid to prevent litter. The program is designed to encourage recycling – the more residents recycle, the more rewards points they receive. Through an incentive program called RecycleBank, residents will be able to redeem their points at stores, restaurants and local attractions such as the Cincinnati Zoo. Each cart will have a bar code, identifying an address that the cart belongs to. The amount inside the cart, collected biweekly, will be weighed. Recyclers will earn bonus points based on the amount the city recycles, not just each individual cart. This will hopefully get residents to motivate and encourage one another to recycle more. Picking up the carts biweekly instead of weekly will save the City approximately $700,000 a year. The rest of the City will be included in the new program by January/February 2011.

According to the Office of Environmental Quality, in 2009, the City of Cincinnati residents sent 94,000 tons of material to the landfill, and recycled 13,000 tons of material. Recycling materials creates more jobs than placing items in a landfill, and recycling diverts tons of trash from being added to that landfill. The enhanced recycling program will allow the City of Cincinnati to save money on avoided landfill fees and waste collection, create jobs, reduce pollution, save natural resources and save landfill space.

For more information, visit the City of Cincinnati’s Recycling website.

Tuesday, October 5th, Mayor Mark Mallory, the Office of Environmental Quality, RecycleBank, Rumpke Recycling, Cascade Engineering, and Proctor & Gamble’s Future Friendly will host a press conference explaining the program details. The conference will be held at 10am at Annwood Park, 1900 Madison Road. The event includes: program explanation, new automated equipment demonstration, and RecycleBank reward partners meet and greet.  Food and refreshments will be provided from RecycleBank partners such as Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati Zoo, City Barbeque, The Coca Cola Company, Dewey’s Pizza, Graeter’s, Long John Silvers, Park+Vine and P&G’s Future Friendly. The first 100 residents to attend will receive 50 extra bonus RecycleBank points.