Empowering communities through education

Recycling education centers are opening their doors to residents and visitors across the country to offer a behind-the-scenes look at the recycling process. Through interactive exhibits, guided tours and hands-on activities, these education centers allow visitors to see firsthand how materials are sorted, processed and eventually transformed into new products.

Each center is different, but they all share common goals, including promoting behavior changes, building trust in recycling and encouraging people to reduce waste, reuse materials and improve their recycling efforts.

Hands-on learning and community engagement

Whether it’s sorting recyclables in a game, creating crafts from upcycled materials or seeing recycling technology and equipment in action, these education centers provide visitors with ample knowledge to enhance recycling skills and improve everyday habits.

At Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center in Columbus, Ohio, visitors ages 10 and up can test their recycling knowledge through a series of interactive exhibits in a 3,000-square-foot education center, designed in collaboration with Columbus-based science museum COSI, also known as the Center of Science and Industry. These exhibits portray real-life scenarios that prompt visitors to consider the choices they make daily, such as selecting items at a grocery store based on packaging recyclability and determining which items belong in a recycling bin.

The first exhibit is a supermarket simulation where visitors shop for items and learn about packaging recyclability. The second exhibit is a video game that allows visitors to test their knowledge of recyclable materials by sorting items into waste or recycling bins. The third exhibit features a large, 3D model of Rumpke’s material recovery facility (MRF), which uses audio and video to highlights the MRF’s different components. Visitors also can learn how specific equipment like a trommel or eddy current works as well as see bales of paper, aluminum and plastics.

Finally, a career exhibit highlights the wide range of careers in the waste and recycling industry, and an end-user exhibit displays various commodities as well as the products created from those materials.

“At Rumpke, more than 80 percent of the materials we process go back to end users in the state of Ohio or the Midwest, fueling our local economy,” says Amanda Pratt, senior vice president of communications at Cincinnati-based Rumpke Waste & Recycling.

Following the exhibits, visitors continue on to a more than 100-foot-long platform for an audio-guided walking tour of the MRF.

“On this tour, visitors can see recycling is real and that their efforts are making a difference,” Pratt says. “Our hope is that after seeing behind the curtain, they can better trust the recycling process and that we as an industry are constantly innovating to successfully manage society’s waste and recyclables in a beneficial way.”

The MRF, which opened in June 2024, is outfitted with a processing system custom-designed by Canadian equipment manufacturer Machinex. The system includes four ballistic separators, 19 optical sorters, 10 artificial intelligence (AI) technology units, a hydraulic lift tipper, two ceiling-mouned cranes and nine vacuums to remove plastic bags from the sorting line. The MRF can process up to 250,000 tons annually from more than 50 Ohio counties and currently has a recovery rate of approximately 98 percent to 99 percent.

In Brooklyn, New York, Balcones Recycling also is lifting the veil on the recycling process by hosting in-person tours at its Recycling Education Center located within its Sunset Park MRF, which sits on an 11-acre pier.

The tours, designed for third-graders and older, consist of three parts: an introduction to the MRF, information on what belongs in recycling bins based on New York’s recycling guidelines and a tour of the Recycling Education Center.

The center features five interactive exhibit stations:

• Material origins. This station educates visitors on the natural resources used to make products.
• Collection truck. This interactive exhibit explains how recyclables are collected and transported for processing.
• Sorting. Through a demonstration, visitors can learn the process of sorting materials by weight, type and size.
• A recycling jobs wheel. Visitors spin the wheel to learn about different roles within the industry.
• What recycled materials become. This station explains how recyclables are turned into new products.

After exploring the exhibits, visitors head upstairs to the observation deck to see the MRF in action.

The facility processes about 1,000 tons of recyclable materials daily, including metal, plastic and glass, which are transported along 2.5 miles of conveyor belts.

“Our MRF is equipped with 16 optical sorters, a large drum magnet, eddy currents, glass breakers, a ballistic separator and other technologies and equipment that help us manage the large amount of material we receive,” Balcones Recycling Director of Education Kara Napolitano says. “My hope is that by seeing recycling in action, visitors will better understand recycling is real and recycling right is good and helpful.

“The goal is to not only get them to recycle right but to waste less so we can ultimately create a circular economy.”

In 2024, the center welcomed approximately 5,000 in-person visitors and 3,000 virtual tour participants.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Kent County Recycling and Education Center also is looking to improve recycling rates through tours and field trips, presentations and hands-on activities such as its classroom Eco-Kits.

Within the center’s 5,000-square-foot education space, visitors can explore a range of exhibits, including a waste and recycling evolution timeline; the history of recycling in Grand Rapids; informational kiosks featuring recycling facts, statistics and trivia questions; a classroom with live footage of the MRF’s presort area, tipping floor, optical sorter and baler; a product life cycle display; an upcycled craftmaking area; and more.

The MRF, which hosted approximately 4,800 visitors for tours last year, processes about 30,000 tons annually with a 90 percent recovery rate. It sends processed materials to five states, as well as throughout Michigan and Canada, and is equipped with a cardboard separator, two paper screens, a glass breaker, an eddy current, AI-powered sorting robots and other technologies and equipment.

Recycling education centers play a crucial role in building the public’s trust and improving recycling, reuse and waste reduction efforts. By offering hands-on experiences and behind-the-scenes tours, they can help visitors better understand the impact proper recycling can have on communities and the environment.

Addressing contamination and problematic materials

Contamination is a significant challenge in recycling facilities, and one item continues to pose a growing threat: batteries.

For example, last year, the Kent County Recycling and Education Center experienced a fire caused by a lithium-ion battery. While the MRF was able to contain the fire without injury to employees or damage to equipment, it took additional precautions and installed a unit from Farmington Hills, Michigan-based Fire Rover to enhance fire safety measures.

“Finding the cause of the fire was like finding a needle in a haystack, and we’re lucky it didn’t cause a catastrophic event,” says Micah Herrboldt, waste reduction educator at the Kent County Department of Public Works. “During all our tours, we include information about the dangers of throwing batteries and other hazards into bins and provide information about our SafeChem locations, which accept a wide range of household hazardous waste items for free.”

At Balcones’ Sunset Park MRF, staff also educate visitors about the dangerous implications of improperly disposing of lithium-ion batteries.

“Our MRF experiences one to three fires daily because residents are incorrectly placing lithium-ion batteries in their recycling bins,” Napolitano says. “I mention this to nearly every visitor and stress that no batteries of any kind should be placed in recycling bins.”

To prepare for potential fires, employees receive training on how to extinguish them, and many of the MRF’s conveyers are equipped with sprinkler systems.

The future of recycling education

Recycling education centers continue to evolve, with many exploring ways to enhance their interactive exhibits, expand outreach and welcome more visitors to learn about recycling processes and the impact of their daily efforts.

As communities work to improve recycling rates, reduce contamination and achieve waste reduction goals, these centers will remain at the forefront of those efforts. Through ongoing hands-on learning opportunities and community engagement, they can empower individuals to take meaningful action to make a difference in their communities.

The author is the event and content producer for the Recycling Today Media Group and can be reached at mszczepanski@gie.net.