Rumpke Revamps Columbus MRF

More than $1 million in new sorting and processing equipment has been added to the Columbus, Ohio, material recovery facility (MRF) run by Rumpke Recycling.

The Cincinnati-based solid waste and recycling company has reconfigured the MRF to accept single-stream curbside materials collected in the Columbus area as well as from dozens of recycling drop-off recycling centers in central Ohio.

The new system includes additional conveyors, sorting stations and a disc screen installed by CP Manufacturing, National City, Calif. Rumpke now has the ability to send up to 24 tons of material per hour through its Columbus sorting line, according to Steve Sargent, general manager of the company’s recycling operations.

The plant’s managers hope to use the plant’s increased capacity to process materials that will be secured in cooperation with the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO), Grove City, Ohio. The solid waste agency has recently assumed the leadership role for recycling efforts within the city of Columbus.

Although the city has not committed to curbside pick-up, SWACO has begun placing recycling drop-off boxes throughout the city. “Now residents can throw all recyclables into one drop box, providing a new level of convenience for Franklin County residents,” says SWACO’s Michael Long. “We were able to do this because Rumpke made this commitment to expand its plant.”

Sargent says the materials coming in from the drop boxes are fully commingled and sometimes contain a high degree of contaminants, although many of the contaminants are ultimately recyclable. Plant manager Mark Gray says that only 10 to 12 percent of what comes in is considered residue and is directed to the landfill.

The company is able to ship aluminum UBCs, steel cans, old corrugated containers, newspaper grades, natural HDPE, clear PET, mixed colored plastics, clear, green and brown glass cullet and various scrap metal grades.

Rumpke has also used grant money to put in a plastics sorting system designed by MSS Inc., Nashville, Tenn. The system allows the company to accept mixed bales from other recyclers and sort them into higher-value grades. The company is working on another grant that will allow it to pulverize incoming glass into an aggregate product.