Collaborating with local governments, nonprofits, schools, and businesses, SWACO prioritizes its efforts to build and foster partnerships and look for other opportunities for SWACO to be a community partner and leader.
In 1988, the state of Ohio passed House Bill 592, which created Solid Waste Districts whose goal it is to help the community reduce its reliance on landfills. SWACO is the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio and serves the solid waste district of Franklin County, OH. SWACO is unique in the state of Ohio in that not only is it (statutorily) responsible for helping to increase the diversion of materials from landfills, but it also owns and operates a municipal solid waste landfill. This offers SWACO a holistic look at the waste stream, providing the opportunity to monitor materials being disposed of by homes and businesses in the region, and to respond by creating programs to capture and divert these materials from the landfill for economic and environmental benefit.
To that end, SWACO monitors the materials arriving at the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill by conducting Waste Characterization Studies approximately every five years. As a result of those learnings, much of SWACO鈥檚 work centers on food waste prevention (food waste being the single largest category by weight of landfill material) as well as helping area schools and businesses (some of the largest waste generators in the Solid Waste District) to establish sustainable recycling programs. SWACO also offers robust residential recycling assistance for individuals living in Franklin County, OH and the local municipalities, townships, and villages that serve them.
SWACO is located in central Ohio and serves 41 communities in Franklin County. The largest customer and partner is the state鈥檚 capital city, Columbus. SWACO owns the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill, a municipal solid waste landfill, and two transfer stations. They also own and operate a Recycling Convenience Center where hard-to-recycle items such as food waste, Styrofoam, batteries, and electronic waste are accepted.
Recycling Challenges and Outreach
During COVID, many of SWACO鈥檚 public outreach and educational efforts were impacted. However, SWACO quickly pivoted from in-person events and began offering more robust virtual offerings, including creating a weekly e-mail series and monthly webinars where residents and business leaders can ask questions and learn about waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and safe disposal. In 2021, SWACO was recognized by the Public Relations Society of America 鈥� Central Ohio Chapter with a Prism Award for its work to educate residents on how to recycle right during the pandemic.
Currently, recycling participation, and to some extent contamination, continue to be a challenge for residential recycling programs. 鈥淚n central Ohio, one in four households incorrectly bag their recyclables and 60 percent of a home鈥檚 recyclables aren鈥檛 being captured for recycling,鈥� says SWACO鈥檚 Director of Communications, Hanna Greer-Brown. 鈥淭o help, SWACO created the Recycle Right, Make a Difference program, which has helped to improve recycling.鈥� Recycle Right features coordinated community-level education campaigns through which SWACO partners with community leaders to send recycling information to residents鈥� homes. In addition, SWACO invests in widescale traditional advertising to reach even more people within the Solid Waste District with recycling information. 鈥淐entral Ohio鈥檚 recycling rate (residential, commercial and industrial sectors) currently stands at 54 percent, up from 34 percent just a few short years ago,鈥� points out Greer-Brown.
SWACO鈥檚 Business Recycling Toolkit helps businesses recycle successfully and includes several steps鈥攆rom planning a program, to successfully working with a waste hauler, educating employees, and guidance on where to place signage and containers to maximize impact. The toolkit can help businesses implement sustainable, long-term recycling programs.
Summit on Sustainability.
Greer-Brown explains, 鈥淲hile not always cost-free, recycling often costs less than solid waste disposal services and can save a company on trash hauling costs. In addition, consumers are more conscious than ever about where they spend their money, seeking companies that demonstrate concern for their environmental impacts. For many Central Ohio residents, recycling is becoming an expectation at home and where they work and spend their money. As the workforce in the region becomes younger, many firms also find that their potential employees want to work for companies with commitments to sustainability, community involvement, and social responsibility.鈥�
Community Programs
In addition to offering recycling education to residents, SWACO is focused on delivering support, advice, education, and incentives to area businesses to help them recycle. 鈥淪ixty percent of the waste material arriving at the Franklin County Sanitary Landfill comes from the commercial sector, making outreach to area schools, businesses, and others in the commercial sector a top priority. So, in the last several years, SWACO has created and launched several programs for businesses, including the Business Recycling Champions program,鈥� says Greer-Brown. Following are a few local companies that SWACO has highlighted.
Ajumama
Ajumama is a food truck serving up Korean and Southern-inspired dishes, and is a part of a collective of food and beverage businesses using incubation services and a commercial commissary offered by ECDI called the Food Fort to start and grow their operations. The owner approached ECDI last year with a desire to start a composting program. Shortly thereafter, ECDI applied for and received a waste reduction grant from SWACO and is in the process of piloting a one-year composting program through which Ajumama and nearly 50 other local small businesses can recycle their back-of-the-house kitchen scraps into compost.
Mukha Spa
Mukha Spa is located in Columbus鈥� Short North neighborhood and has the special recognition of being the first business to complete SWACO鈥檚 Business Recycling Champions. Mukha鈥檚 new and improved recycling program will help to keep even more of central Ohio鈥檚 valuable metals out of the landfill and moving through a circular economy.
In fact, recycling means big business in central Ohio where nearly 400 businesses are recycling reliant. When these materials are recycled, they go to businesses in Ohio, like Cleveland-Cliffs facility in Middletown, where steel cans are turned into new parts for the North American auto industry.
Kittie鈥檚 Cakes
Kittie鈥檚 Cakes has three bakery locations in central Ohio, which all donate their prepared yet unsold food to Columbus Food Rescue who redistributes it to soup kitchens and shelters. What Kittie鈥檚 cannot donate is picked up by GoZero and turned into nutrient rich compost. But that is not all, Kitties also uses low waste service items like compostable cold and hot cups, straws, and containers.
Building Partnerships
SWACO is proud to have been recognized locally, nationally and internationally for its collaborative work on food waste prevention as well as its residential recycling program efforts. To date, 100 percent of the cities in SWACO鈥檚 jurisdiction offer residents a convenient curbside recycling program. Looking to the future, the organization is working on developing grants for additional hospital and community diversion efforts, strengthening their support of the numerous colleagues and universities in their jurisdiction, conducting an updated waste characterization study, and expanding their newly opened Recycling Convenience Center to accept even more hard to recycle items.
Executive Director Joe Lombardi commented, 鈥淪WACO can鈥檛 achieve our vision without collaborating with other local governments, nonprofits, schools, and businesses, so we are prioritizing efforts to build and foster partnerships and look for other opportunities for SWACO to be a community partner and leader.鈥� | WA
For more information, contact Hanna Greer-Brown, Director of Communications, at [email protected].
Resources
www.ecdi.org
www.swaco.org/425/Business-Recycling-Champions-Program