COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Half a million people can create quite a mess. It takes a huge team to clean up after the massive Red,White and Boom celebration. And a lot of the trash can be recycled if festival goers are conscientious.
Despite some inclement weather at last year's Boom, crews from Rumpke, Inc., collected and recovered more than 3,000 pounds of recyclables.
"That equates to about 100,000 beverage containers and some other associated paper and cardboard," says Rumpke spokesperson Todd Wielinski.
The 2008 effort was so successful, Rumpke is spearheading the project again. The company has re-partnered with Boom and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to make it happen. A grant from ODNR paid for many of the new, green, covered recycle bins.
"It is important to recycle. It is the right thing to go green," says ODNR Grant Coordinator Chet Chaney.
Organizers say it is important to make recycling convenient. Rumpke plans to spread 750 trash containers around the Boom festival site. More than a third of those will be for recyclables. The trash
containers are brown. The recycle bins are green with a yellow lid.
They'll be recycling the same kinds of things you can recycle at home: paper, plastic, cardboard and cans.
"If you think it's recyclable," Wielinski says, "please put it in the containers and we'll make sure it gets recovered."
Rumpke will also be sorting through the regular trash containers, collecting the recyclable materials that festival goers don't self-sort. That's not something the company normally does but thinks there will be enough extra material to make the effort worthwhile.
"We anticipate doubling the amount that we recovered from last year's event," Wielinski says.
The company also is working with vendors and concessioners to collect paper and cardboard before and after the festival.
Rumpke has hired more than 100 people just for the trash and recycling efforts at Red, White & Boom. So, the company says, the project is not only good for the environment, it's good for the economy because it's putting people to work.
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