As urban areas like Columbus gain population and generate more residential and commercial waste, the lifespans of many of the nation’s landfills are rapidly dwindling. In 2022, the Sustainability Institute (SI) at Ohio State and Rumpke Waste and Recycling launched a collaboration to support student investigations into technologies to capture more recyclable materials from waste streams, promote zero waste efforts across campus, and provide financial assistance to students from the City of Columbus, including those neighborhoods closest to the company’s new materials recovery facility. Several years in, the $1 million commitment by Rumpke is making a difference in how the university teaches circular economy topics and manages its own waste.
Enabling Student Solutions
Part of Rumpke’s contribution to the university supports student projects at the Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence (CDME) that seek to improve robotic sorting of materials through AI-powered cameras and neural networks. Multiple student teams have worked on the project, dubbed the Robotic Recycling Sorting System, or R2S2, and even investigated how to make it portable to reduce contamination at the point in the recycling stream when an item is discarded. Rumpke experts have advised the student teams, providing insights into the challenges that sorting technologies encounter when in use at an actual recycling center.
“The projects sponsored by Rumpke are giving our students hands-on experience integrating new technologies into industrial applications,” said CDME Executive Director Nate Ames. “They’ve been a great mentor to our students and partner to our staff.”
Rumpke has also opened its doors to Ohio State students. It hosted students from CDME and a new sustainable packaging class at its nearby Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center, which opened in 2024. In 2023, a group of sustainability majors made a trip to Rumpke’s corporate headquarters and landfill operation in Cincinnati. These visits put what students are learning in the classroom about the circular economy into a real-world context.
Zero Waste on Campus
Ohio State has set an ambitious zero waste goal to divert as much as 90% of the waste generated on campus from the local landfill. As the university’s waste and recycling service provider, Rumpke has an interest in helping facilities and operations staff make progress toward the goal. Through the SI collaboration, the company has invested in multiple campus-wide projects.
One of the most successful projects has been the steady replacement of a hodge-podge of waste and recycling containers across campus with standardized bins. The new bin sets have backboard signage that shows what can be recycled and what should be thrown away. The transition to standardized bins and messaging makes it easier for everyone on campus to correctly discard waste into the proper bin. In places where the new bins and signage were installed, recycling contamination has dropped and less recyclable materials are mixed in with the trash.
“We’re proud to help Ohio State get closer to its zero waste goal,” said Jeff Snyder, Senior Vice President of Recycling and Sustainability at Rumpke. “It’s not only good for the university, but it helps us meet the demand from many companies for clean recycled material to reuse in their production.”
Another priority has been beefing up zero waste efforts for large events. Some of Rumpke’s support has been used to purchase clear containers for recycling at athletic events such as tailgating. Clear recycling bins allow event participants to see what has been placed in each bin and help reinforce better recycling behavior. Ohio State and Rumpke staff are also working together to capture more recyclable materials, primarily cardboard, during move-in for the fall semester. These four days generate nearly 100 tons of material, which is close to the amount of waste collected at the Ohio State Stadium during the entire football season.
Community Support
As part of its commitment to local communities, Rumpke created the Rumpke Family Scholarship at Ohio State to support undergraduate students from Columbus neighborhoods, especially those closest to the company’s materials recovery facility.
“We’re always looking for ways to give back to those communities that have welcomed Rumpke,” said Amanda Pratt, Senior Vice President of Communications at Rumpke.
The scholarship is currently benefiting multiple students from the city.
“Paying my own way through college means scholarships are crucial to me and I am very grateful for my donors at Rumpke,” said Erica Offei, a first-generation student studying accounting in the Fisher College of Business. “This support enables me to work less, focus more on school, and reduces my financial burden for college. This also allows me to do more community service, which is a huge passion and value of mine.”
In addition, Rumpke has stepped up to sponsor several community events across campus including the family science fair called WestFest, the Buck-i-Frenzy festival held during Welcome Week for students, and the 2025 annual forum of Women in Sustainability, which focused on circular economy issues and featured Rumpke’s corporate recycling marketing manager as a panelist.
On the Horizon
“We’re really pleased with how our collaboration with Rumpke is introducing circularity issues to our students while helping the university walk the talk in terms of its own zero waste goal,” said Elena Irwin, SI Faculty Director. “As we look ahead, we are excited to explore some research opportunities as well.”
Rumpke has agreed to support the expansion of an Ohio State research project in the next year that will examine how the use of AI can lead to new insights for improving customer practices related to curbside recycling. It also plans to help an early career faculty member in the College of Engineering with a project to develop feedstock for 3D printing from recycled metals, including a demonstration of the technology at its materials recovery facility in Columbus. Finally, the company has expressed interest in research to help it better detect lithium batteries that have been improperly discarded and can cause fires on its trucks and in its sorting operations.
“As more communities tackle the growing problem of waste, developing circular solutions is becoming even more critical,” adds Irwin. Fortunately, collaborations like the one between the Sustainability Institute and Rumpke are up to the challenge.
Story by Bryan Hu, SI Business Development Student Assistant