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A new recycling program was announced earlier today that targets both residential and business partners in the Downtown area and aims to reduce landfill waste coming out of Downtown by up to 66%. The program was launched as a public-private partnership between the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District, the City of Columbus, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, SWACO, and 35 Downtown landowners and businesses.
“Capital Crossroads is in the unique position to facilitate partnerships, and our Downtown landowners, tenants, restaurants and residents asked us to help with recycling,” said Cleve Ricksecker, Executive Director. ” Our plan is to help these first 35 participants achieve improved contracts with their haulers, and then share the knowledge, experience and template to all of the 550 downtown landowners.”
Participating Downtown partners include The Exchange Lofts, 280 Plaza, Sixty Spring, Barrio, Bricker & Eckler, The Columbus Athenaeum, The Downtown YMCA, Due Amici, The Fifth Third Center, The Huntington Bank Buildings, The Hyatt on Capitol Square, The LeVeque Tower, The Lofts at 106, The Elevator, Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails, Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, Wall Street Nightclub, and more.
According to the press release issued earlier today, the individual components of the initiative include:
- It gathers detailed solid waste information on 35 properties representing millions of square feet, then turns this information over to one law firm
- Allows the properties to negotiate contracts collectively with the goal of increasing services and providing affordable and cost effective recycling
- Creates more efficient collection routes that reduce emissions and costs
- Provides properties with a flexible menu of services they can choose to use whenever their current contracts expire
- Teaches many property owners how to recycle
- Recommends solutions to various problems
- Promotes “preferred haulers” who will use the best practices to the downtown community so all properties can benefit from this work
The right step in the right direction. There is no reason why Columbus can’t be the cleanest and the greenest city in the nation. Will require everyone pitching in and it all starts at home of course.
This is great news for downtown! Kudos to Cleve and the downtown SID for coordinating such a massive effort!
I heard that Liz had a role in this too. ;) Nice work from everyone involved!
I’ve also heard that the plan is to see how this goes for the downtown SID and start rolling out similar plans to other neighborhoods over time.
Awesome!
yay!
glad to hear this coming. recycling in a high density area like this is the definition of low-hanging fruit. i hope this makes a full impact.
Columbus is absolutely terrible for recycling. I’m glad that FINALLY something is happening.
My uncle is the mayor in a small town in Maryland. He has done such a fantastic job at making Snow Hill a super clean, efficient town that recycles. I talked to him last weekend about how ridiculous Columbus is. The thing that has to be done he said is that it has to be mandatory and every home and business needs to be provided with adequate information and bins. People pay for trash and recycling is free. More jobs can be created by having more workers needed for sorting and maintenance. If people don’t recycle there is a warning and then a fine. The city then has potential to make money off of people who don’t do their part. Of course then people will do it because they have to. As they should.
I never understood why the City of Columbus with its population of nearly 800K considers that it has a recycling program when you have to pay extra for curbside pickup. Then they say they offer free recycling by setting up bins at Kroger or schools. And yet city leaders scratch their heads and wonder why the recycling rate is so pathetically low and Mount Rumpke grows. It’s been said before. Charge for the trash by container size and make recycling “free”. Since I’ve started recycling in the 90s, I find that I never fill my garbage container and my recycle bin is overflowing. And I’m no hippie zealot.
I hate to say it, but maybe the only way to kickstart recycling is to tack on a 5 cent deposit on every beverage container.
Downtown recycling has shot at success
Sunday, December 26, 2010 02:58 AM
BY MARK FERENCHIK
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A Downtown recycling program is catching on slowly but could turn into a model for other Ohio cities if property owners are able to reduce trash-hauling costs, a state official said.
Terrie TerMeer, deputy chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Recycling and Litter Prevention, said the pilot program could be expanded if it works.
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