Wilmington Considers Greener Alternatives to Curbside Recycling

Mike Crowe, City Service Director

At the February 20th, 2025 Wilmington City Council meeting, city officials spoke about the future of the curbside recycling program.

Mike Crowe, Public Service Director, shared that the curbside recycling program began in 2004 with blue bags, then bins, and finally to the current 65-gallon blue toters in 2017 and became an “opt-out” program. In the beginning, a company called Abitibi would collect the recyclables from Wilmington and pay $42 for each ton collected. According to Mike, 1,500 residents participated in the program at that time. Rumpke later bought out Abitibi and instead of paying Wilmington, began charging $26 per ton collected. Rumpke has since increased the charge to $40 per ton. 

Mike has been researching other options, including using the state prison system. They all declined to acquire the recycling program because there was “too much volume for them.” In regards to negotiating with Rumpke, Mike stated that Rumpke now has a monopoly in the area, and that Wilmington is one of the few cities in Ohio that still manages its own landfill as a service to residents. According to Mike, the next closest landfill is out of town near Dayton. 

Mike also invited Jeff Walls, Clinton County Solid Waste Coordinator, to speak at city council for an alternative view. Jeff stated that “killing” the program was “a little extreme” and used a fast food meal analogy to explain how residents pay for the package as a whole, not the actual cost of each service. Mike disagreed and stated that recycling was never budgeted for, “a penny was deducted from resident’s trash bill and added to recycling.”

After Abitibi stopped paying Wilmington for recycling and Rumpke started charging Wilmington instead, Mike tried to implement a commercial cardboard recycling program to regain some funds. Mike stated that there is money in recycling, just not in “commingled recycling,” like the curbside program offers. 

When asked if it would save the city money for Rumpke to take over recycling collection, Mike didn’t think it was likely due to the “highly contaminated” nature of Wilmington’s recycling. Mike stated that the city has had to confiscate many toters from residents who were recycling improperly or using it as a second trash can. However, Jeff Walls disagreed, and suggested Wilmington’s contamination is below state averages.   

After Mike’s presentation, he explained that the potential environmental benefits of the curbside recycling program might be outweighed by the negative environmental effects and the cost. According to Mike, the recycling truck burned 28,339 gallons of diesel fuel in 2024. He explained that this equates to 674 gallons of crude oil. In addition to the fuel used, Mike also stated that the truck produced 3.24 metric tons of CO2 in 2024. 

The city’s recycling program was also partially intended to help offset the use of the landfill, but in 2024 only 285 tons of recyclables were collected compared to 55,864 tons of waste (less than 1%). According to Cody Romohr, Sanitation Superintendent, the city will also need a new recycling truck estimated to cost around $400,000.

The main message according to Mike is, “For our curbside recycling program, the benefit is not there to justify the environmental impacts and the cost to the city… I think it would be much more justifiable to partner with Clinton County at their drop-off stations in some fashion.” If the program is kept, Mike stated, “It’s gonna have to be funded through a charge.” 

Despite his opinion however, Mike stated, “If the citizens of Wilmington want to weigh these [options] and say we don’t care, we want it, we want to recycle, I’m a public servant.” He asked council to talk with residents and consider either bringing forward legislation that eliminates the program, or legislation that charges $3 for a recycling toter and reduces the cost of a second trash can to $3.

After council, Jeff pointed out 11 options, including using a rear-load packer truck rather than an automated one, forming a recycling consortium, reevaluating the out-of-county disposal fee, and expanding to local villages.

Learn more about the future of Wilmington’s curbside recycling program by talking to city council or visiting wilmingtonohio.gov.