Training the next generation

The Recycling Today Media Group team was lucky enough to get to tour Rumpke Waste & Recycling’s new material recovery facility (MRF) in Columbus, Ohio, a $100 million facility that the Cincinnati-based company says is the largest and most advanced in North America. With 19 optical scanners, three tipping floors and artificial intelligence-assisted technology throughout, it’s generated plenty of media coverage.

One thing I have not seen covered is the incredible scale model of the recycling system that Quebec-based Machinex custom-designed for the MRF. The model captures every separator, trommel and conveyor belt and comes complete with tiny workers—repurposed from a model train set—on the lines and in the control room.

Painstakingly created using a 3D printer and assembled by High Point, North Carolina-based Holt Experiential, an environmental design and fabrication agency, the model is just one part of a 3,000-square-foot education center designed to teach the public about recycling. At various points around the model, videos show and tell visitors what happens at each stage of the system.

Developed in coordination with COSI, the city’s science and industry museum for kids, Rumpke’s education center is geared toward young people, ages 10 and up, who are just starting to learn about recycling. Rumpke says it hopes the center will become a destination for field trip groups from local schools.

As part of one hands-on activity, kids can “shop” in a grocery store, loading their baskets with realistic-looking products, including everything from canned green beans to boxes of cheese crackers to clamshell packages of strawberries. Once their baskets are full, they load their products onto a conveyor belt and scan them to learn if they are recyclable or not. Each recyclable item selected earns them points.

Visitors to the education center also can play a video game in which they must determine whether items scrolling across the screen should be placed in the recycling bin or the waste bin.

I love the idea of training and empowering the next generation for success in recycling. That’s something COR Disposal & Recycling, the Portland, Oregon-based company profiled for this month’s cover story, values as well.

The family-owned company places a heavy focus on workforce development and improving the economic trajectory of its employees, including frequently promoting from within and offering an in-house training program that provides a career pathway for licensed drivers who want to get a commercial driver’s license.

Read more about COR Disposal & Recycling’s work in our cover story, "Upward trajectory."