Did you walk out to bring your trash cans in and find an “ OOOPS” tag on your recycle cart in the last month? I did a year ago and as I grumbling about it while dragging my still full recycle cart back, I realized I wasn’t recycling correctly.
Well the City Of Akron and Keep Akron Beautiful kicked off the 2026 recycle right campaign on June 18 and it will continue through the end of this month. This is a countywide initiative to improve the quality of recycling in our curbside carts by providing residence with personalized and curbside recycling, education, and feedback. Please don’t take offense if you get a note on your can we’re just trying to make sure that we keep contaminants and non-recyclable items out of our recycling stream so we can keep cost down with our vendors. Before the Recycle Right program began in 2019, almost 40% of what residents were putting in their curbside cart was not actually recyclable. This cost the city over $200,000 in contamination cost and put our entire recycling program in jeopardy.
With Keep Akron Beautiful’s help, we’ve had a significant impact on our contamination rates, and with the addition of our glass drop off program, we’ve transformed Akron’s recycling for the better. The latest recycling audits have confirmed the city’s contamination rate has drpped to about 12%. So instead of costing the money, the recycling program is actually creating revenue! kAB’s Executive Director Jacque Riccuiti says “ Recycle Right is proof that education works, when residents understand what belong in their recycling carts, the entire system works better”.
So if youR recycle cart gets tagged with an “OOPS”note, don’t get upset like I did, take a look and see what’s in that cart that doesn’t belong. To learn more about what can and can’t be recycled and the locations of our drop-off bins., click on this link:
https://www.akronohio.gov/departments/service/public_works_bureau/trash_and_recycling.php