Public Recycling Containers

WeThrive have been working for several years now to improve the recycling initiatives in our city.  We began by lobbying our city council for full curbside recycling with Rumpke, which passed city council 7-0 and became law in October of 2021, as the new garbage contract was being negotiated.  This led to the beginning of our next project, applying for Target City status with the Hamilton County Solid Waste District (officially now Hamilton County R3source). 

Our Auditor and WeThrive navigator Sabrina Smith took the lead on this project, which led to Reading being selected as a Target City, having competed with several other cities in Hamilton County for the county's expertise and funding.  Many of us in WeThrive had believed that a huge source of recycling lay in our city parks, where typically more than 50% of waste material generated is recyclable in the forms of drink cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles, and cardboard.  Thus the beginning of our bid to outfit every park in Reading with recycling cans. 

Bob Ashbrock, a member of WeThrive and a former city council member, brought up the point that to truly do this project correctly and inspire a real improvement to our parks, we should pair a matching trash can side by side with a matching recycling can.  There was absolutely no disagreement with this concept.  However, when pitched to Hamilton County (from whom we were granted $30,000 for the project) we were told that the county would only fund the recycle cans as a sustainable way to reduce waste. 

Enter Kevin and Annie Hess, members of WeThrive, who proposed the idea that Kevin's company, Witt Industries (makers of exactly the recycling cans we wanted!) might be willing to give the city a discount, or perhaps even donate the matching trash cans if the county used Witt Industries as the contractor to build our recycling cans.  The Hess family and the Ormond family wrote up the proposal and it was given to Witt Industries in the fall of 2022. Our proposal was accepted, and with that, a contract was negotiated for Hamilton County to buy $30,000 worth of recycling cans (pictured below) and Witt Industries would DONATE, yes donate, the matching $30,000 worth of trash cans! 

Upon further negotiation with Witt Industries and our Safety Service Director, Patrick Ross, it was agreed to add extra matching pairs of cans, specially etched with the Bridal District logo to proudly display on Benson St. 

All total Reading will receive 30 pairs of matching cans for our city parks, and 10 pairs of the specially etched Bridal District cans, a total value to the city of $68,000 for a meager few thousand dollars (etching and bridal district cans). 

With these cans in place, along with our Rumpke curbside recycling and our pop up recyclers that are portable for use at church festivals and the like, Reading will absolutely become the #1 recycling city in Hamilton County.  With our dedicated city employees and equally dedicated citizenry, we believe Reading's landfill diversion rate can improve from a mere 8% to perhaps 50% or better.  We further believe that Reading will be looked at as a  model community for other Hamilton County and tri state communities to improve their recycling efforts! 

A special thank you to all city administrators, city council members past and present, WeThrive members, Rumpke Consolidated, and Witt Industries for their support of this project.  Also, additional thanks specifically to Mayor Bo Bemmes, Sabrina Smith, Donna Wiggins, Pat and Tracy Ormond, Annie and Kevin Hess, Patrick Ross, Gage Bradford (Hamilton County) and Brett Perdue (Witt Industries).

Please look for our new cans to be on display throughout our parks and city, hopefully by Memorial Day!