State Grant to Boost Rumpke’s Glass Recycling

The Ohio EPA and the Hamilton County Recycling and Solid Waste District have announced a $250,000 recycling grant awarded to Cincinnati-based Rumpke Recycling to finance glass recycling equipment.

The grant money will be used to install a glass recovery system at Rumpke’s new Cincinnati area materials recovery facility (MRF). The new equipment will help screen, clean and sort glass at the facility.

After the glass is processed, it will be shipped to Rumpke’s Dayton, Ohio facility for further processing. The processed glass will then be shipped to Owens-Illinois and Johns Manville to create glass containers and home insulation. (For more on the Dayton process, please go here.)

“Today’s grant will help save landfill space and provide Ohio manufacturers with a necessary raw ingredient,” said Ohio EPA Director Scott Nally at an Earth Day Event at the Rumpke Recycling Cincinnati are MRF in St. Bernard, Ohio.

“Hamilton County has long been a leader in facilitating innovative recycling and solid waste solutions,” says County Commissioner Greg Hartmann. “This glass recycling project will provide both environmental and economic benefits to our community.”

Jeff Rumpke (pictured above), vice president of Rumpke Consolidated Cos., remarked, “This partnership ensures that when a resident recycles a glass bottle the result is economic growth, new jobs and new products, and overall, far-reaching environmental benefits.”

According to the Ohio EPA, Ohio’s glass makers estimate they could use an additional 165,000 to 185,000 tons of cullet each year. Because 90 percent of Ohio’s postconsumer glass ends up in landfills, Nally says there is an opportunity for the state to help harvest a secondary raw material from what would have been a waste stream.

Rumpke first invested in glass recycling in 2004 with the construction of its own glass processing facility in Dayton. With a $500,000 Ohio Department of Natural Resources grant, Rumpke completed a $4 million upgrade of that facility in 2011.