DAYTON, Ohio — Rumpke Waste & Recycling is discontinuing its Hefty ReNew recycling program after Hefty announced it is shutting the program down nationwide, the company said in a news release Wednesday.
Hefty notified Rumpke that it is ending the ReNew program because of declining markets for the hard-to-recycle materials it accepted, according to the release. Those materials included plastic utensils, Styrofoam and other plastic packaging that could not go into standard curbside recycling bins.
Rumpke partnered with Hefty ReNew in 2023 to give customers a way to recycle items that traditional curbside programs did not accept. Customers filled special orange bags with the hard-to-recycle materials and dropped them off separately. The company said the program recycled more than 25 tons of material since it launched.
Hefty is working with retailers to pull the orange bags from store shelves, a process the release said could take several months. Rumpke said it will keep processing materials already collected and continue working with Hefty to recycle them through February 2027, and it asked customers to stop promoting the program in the meantime.
The company said it is notifying customers directly about the program’s end and continues to invest in sorting technology and new manufacturing partnerships to expand what can be recycled in the future.
Rumpke’s standard curbside recycling program is unaffected and still accepts glass bottles and jars, steel and aluminum cans and cups, plastic bottles, tubs, jugs and cups, mixed paper and cardboard, and paper cups and cartons. The company asks customers to keep those items loose, clean and out of plastic bags, with no need to remove labels or sort materials by type.
Rumpke, a family-owned company based in the Cincinnati area, has served Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia and Pennsylvania for more than 90 years and operates 18 landfills and 16 recycling centers, according to the release.
The information contained in this story was obtained from Rumpke Waste & Recycling.
