AKRON, Ohio - City workers in Akron will begin peering into random recycling carts again next week, to ferret out non-recyclable items on trash pickup day.

The Recycle Right program will run Monday, June 7, through the end of August.Akron’s Recycle Right program will run Monday, June 7, through the end of August.


What You Need To Know

  • Akron plans to deploy workers on trash pickup days from June 7 through late August to look inside recycling carts for contaminants

  • Carts containing contaminated materials not on Akron’s approved list will get an “oops tag”

  • Residents can remove the contaminants and put the cart on the curb the following week

  • The city wants to lower its contamination rate from nearly 40% in 2019 to 15%

On trash day, the city will deploy specially trained workers to “conduct curbside cart observations,” the city said. The workers will pick random carts looking for contaminants, like glass, clothing, toys, chemicals, wood — anything the city does not deem appropriate for the recycle steam.

Carts with contaminants won’t be emptied, the city said. Instead, an “oops tag” with feedback will be placed on the cart. Residents will have the chance to make it right and return their cart to the curb the following week, the city said.

Recycle Right was initially launched in 2019 to clean up Akron’s recycle stream, at a time when cities, like Cleveland,  were pausing their recycling programs indefinitely.

China, which had accepted much of the U.S. and Europe’s plastics, scrap metals and other materials, had started imposing tariffs on imports of waste and recyclable materials. In 2018, China said it would stop taking all the materials because the rate of contamination was too high. With no markets for the materials, cities were paying to offer recycle programs.

Mayor Dan Horrigan said recycling the proper materials saves money.

“Recycling properly not only saves taxpayer money by reducing the cost of dumping at the landfill, but gives our residents the ability to participate directly in combatting climate change,” he said in a release. “We know our residents want to recycle the right way — and this campaign is helping us create a more sustainable and effective recycling program.”

 
recycling tag
Akron workers will put an "oops tag" on recycling carts containing contaminants. (courtesy city of Akron)

Before the Recycle Right program, Akron’s contamination rate was nearly 40%, and the program averaged more than $200,000 in contamination costs a year, the city said. Since Recycle Right started, the city’s contamination rate has dropped to just over 26%, and in 2020, costs fell to $38,000.

A recent audit of Akron’s waste and recycling showed the contamination rate is now at 22% — about half what it was when Recycle Right started, the city said. 

Akron’s goal is to reach less than 15% contamination.

“The cleaner our recycling stream, the more sustainable the program will be,” said Keep Akron Beautiful CEO Jacqui Ricchiuti. “This is why we are hoping to get that contamination rate down even further with this next round of the campaign."

Contamination is anything that can’t be recycled through a community’s recycling program — for example, coffee pods, also called “K cups,” are not recyclable in Akron, although milk jugs are.

Just because a plastic container is stamped with a triangle icon doesn’t mean it’s recyclable. To minimize confusion, the city’s “Akron Recycles” app offers details on what the program can accept. Clean recyclables are paper, cardboard, cartons, metal food, beverage cans, and plastic bottles and jugs. Containers should be empty and clean, and the recyclables should not be bagged.

The Recycle Right campaign was developed by the Recycling Partnership, a national nonprofit organization that works with communities and businesses across the U.S. to strengthen recycling programs.