Recycling success story proves education works 

But most homes in Akron, Ohio, where I live, don’t have a recycling expert, so a lot of things end up in the bins that shouldn’t.  

The country’s patchwork of collection programs contributes to the confusion, as acceptable materials vary from municipality to municipality. For example, glass is collected curbside in many Akron suburbs, but the city's sorting process does not play well with glass shards, so bottles and jars are collected separately, in giant bins placed in public spaces. 

Five years ago, the contamination rate of Akron's curbside recyclables was 39.3 percent, and the city was spending more than $200,000 a year to have contaminants removed at a sorting facility. To bring the problem under control, in 2019, the city and the nonprofit Keep Akron Beautiful (KAB) launched Recycle Right, a campaign to get all those plastic bags, greasy pizza boxes, yard waste and other trash out of the recycling stream.  

The program follows a national model created by the Recycling Partnership, which provided funding for the first year along with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, said Jacqui Flaherty-Ricchiuti, CEO and executive director of KAB. Jill Martin, director of community programs for the Recycling Partnership, helped KAB and the city implement it. 

Trained staff fan out across the city on collection days for 12 weeks every year, poking around in the bins at the curb and putting an informational tag on those that contain non-recyclables. (I am proud to say we’ve never been tagged.)  

A marketing campaign and other educational efforts are included. KAB has fielded hundreds of questions from residents over the phone and at the curb, Flaherty-Ricchiuti said.  

Not all went smoothly, especially for the first year or two. Flaherty-Ricchiuti said residents berated inspectors, some left death threats in their bins, and a woman once threw a dirty diaper at her. Now, most residents expect and understand the can checks. 

Despite the pushback, the contamination rate dropped to 28 percent in the first year, "which was huge. That was really, really big numbers for the partnership,” she said. 

The city took over funding after the grants ended, and as of October 2024, the contamination rate had plummeted to 12.5 percent. 

At that point in the year, the city had spent about $8,000 on contamination costs, a fraction of the more than $200,000 spent five years before. The news got even better: The cleaner recyclables had generated more than $21,000 in revenue, which meant approximately $13,000 in profits went back into the program.  

“It just shows that people care about the environment, which is what we're trying to get across to everybody; that's part of our mission. We're really proud of it," Flaherty-Ricchiuti said.  

About half of Akron’s households participate, she said, “and now we're hoping that we can grow the recycling customers and get more people to recycle in the city, and of course, recycle the right way.”  

As in so many other aspects of life, a little education made all the difference. 

Incentives like bottle bills, under which consumers pay a small deposit per bottle that is refunded upon return, also help. The nonprofit Container Recycling Institute reports states with bottle bills have a beverage container recycling rate of around 60 percent, while non-deposit states only reach about 24 percent. 

I recently met a woman at the grocery store who was dropping off an SUV-load of plastic bags for recycling. She said her school receives a bench from Trex after they’ve collected a certain amount of film, via the NexTrex program.  

We got into a long conversation about how the kids are excited to get something back for their efforts, and lamented that there’s no political will for expanding these programs on a national basis. (I’m telling you, I’ve become That Person.) 

People want to do the right thing with recycling. Make it clear, easy and rewarding, and watch it happen.