Residential Recycling Services

The average American generates nearly one ton of trash each year. You can greatly reduce the waste you place at the curb weekly by participating in curbside recycling. Additionally, recycling saves natural resources, electricity and landfill space, while creating jobs.

Rumpke makes recycling as easy as trash disposal with curbside collection. Just add any acceptable items to your recycling bin or cart and place at the curb on your scheduled service day. No need to separate recyclables by type – we handle that at the recycling facility.

Recyclable Items

Acceptable materials may vary slightly in some locations, residents can typically recycle the following:

• Glass bottles & jars (all colors)
• Steel cans
• Aluminum cans and cups 
• Plastic bottles (empty, crush, reattach lid): Bottles and jugs that have a small mouth and wider base, such as milk jugs, soda bottles, laundry detergent bottles, water bottles, shampoo bottles, and contact solution bottles
• Plastic tubs*: Containers for butter, sour cream cottage cheese, yogurt, Jello, and fruit slices would fall into the tub category. Plastic lids should be reattached prior to recycling, film or foil lids should be discarded
• Plastic Cups* (remove/discard straw, reattach lid): Fast food beverage cups – colored party cups are not accepted
• Plastic Clamshell Containers**: Packaging food, retail products, groceries, and takeout items
• Paper: newspaper, magazines, cardboard, mixed office paper and envelopes, paperboard (cereal boxes), pizza boxes free of food debris and grease, telephone books and catalogs
• Paper cups (remove/discard lids, straws and stoppers): Fast food beverage cups, coffee cups, Dixie cups
• Cartons: food and beverage cartons, such as milk, juice, soup, wine, broth, and other cartons

*Cups and tubs are not accepted in Central Kentucky recycling programs at this time

**Currently, clamshell recycling is only available to customers serviced by the Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center. This includes customers within Greater Columbus and Central Ohio, Greater Cleveland. northern Ohio, southeast Ohio and West Virginia. Clamshell recycling is not yet available in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois or Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. However, customers located in Rumpke’s other service areas should not despair. As Rumpke continues to upgrade its other recycling facilities with new technology and end markets continue to expand, you can expect similar recycling options to become available in other areas as well.

Hefty ReNew™ Program

In portions of our service area, residents can also participate in the Hefty ReNew™ program, allowing them to recycle additional plastics, including plastic bags and Styrofoam. Learn more by visiting Hefty ReNew™.