Athens-Hocking Recycling Centers,Inc - Athens

Athens-Hocking Recycling Centers, Inc. creates jobs and economic opportunities locally, while reducing waste, conserving energy and resources, and protecting public health and the environment. Recycling offers every citizen multiple opportunities, everyday, to make their world a cleaner, safer, and better place to live.

In 1984, AHRC became a leader in the state by establishing the first curbside recycling program in Ohio. Today we continue to strive to promote recycling in our communities. Athens-Hocking Recycling creates jobs while reducing waste, improving the economy, conserving energy and resources, protecting public health and the environment and helping to increase national security. Recycling offers every citizen multiple opportunities, everyday, to make their world a cleaner, safer, and more beautiful place to live.

Starting in 2014 AHRC became a separate entity from the Athens-Hocking Solid Wast District as a 501 C-3 Non-profit organization. To encourage more recycling and diversion of waste, we are continually striving to find ways of recycling more types of materials and to provide information on hard to recycle items and where to take them. AHRC Processed over 3,230 tons of Recyclable materials in 2013 and even more in 2014. We hope these numbers keep going up!

Democracy in waste management is served only through a pay-as-you-throw disposal program. Those who throw away the most pay the most. Those who reduce waste and recycle pay less. Athens-Hocking Recycling encourages waste reduction and recycling through such a program. Customers and communities served by Athens-Hocking Recycling are given an incentive to reduce waste and recycle through the pay-as-you-throw service. Waste disposal costs for participants in the pay-as-you-throw program continue to be some of the lowest anywhere due to the built in waste reduction incentive.

Growth in 2014, More to come in 2015!

As you may already know, AHRC started accepting more types of plastic, yard waste, e-waste, scrap metal, food waste, and several other types of materials. We did not stop there. AHRC has expanded our curbside recycling and refuse service into rural areas of Athens and Hocking Counties. Bring recycling to the people! We started this pilot program in certain areas utilizing a split-body compactor truck. This particular type of compactor truck which has two separate compartments (to keep refuse and recyclables seperate enables AHRC to be much more efficient. Twice as much, you could say! This setup saves fuel (reducing our carbon footprint) and time when collecting materials in rural areas. These new routes with the split-body truck collect recycling as a single-stream. All of the recyclable materials can be mixed together by the customer and is later sorted at our facility. Currently we have a certain capacity to sort this material because it is mostly sorted by people. The recycling industry has or is moving towards this type of collection and is present in many areas across Ohio and the nation. Our customers want this too, and have told us so. 
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​How do we expand? By building a larger, more sophisticated materials recovery facility (MRF). The Ohio Environmental Protection agency is urging all Solid Waste Districts across Ohio to increase recycling to divert 25% of municipal solid waste from landfills. How do we do this? Thats where the MRF comes in. The traditional method of collecting materials that are already sorted by the customer. By moving to a single-stream system cuts sorting by customer out of the mix, saving them time and headache. While some people do mind sorting, if you make things easier, more people are likely to recycle and recycling more materials.

Our hope is, by making it easier and more efficient, more residents of Athens and Hocking Counties will recycle which will generate more material to be recycled diverting it from the landfill. This single-stream system will not only be for rural areas, but for all residents of both counties. Other local haulers can utilize this new MRF (some are already doing so) for recycling they pickup. In addition, this MRF will create opportunity for other smaller scale recycling programs in neighboring counties to collect more types of materials and send to AHRC for processing.

Ok. MRF you say. What does that look like and how does it work? There are many videos on the internet if you would like to search, but below is one that captures the basics of how it works, although our MRF will not sort plastics. The plastics will be collected together and compacted into large bails. 

Mixed Recycling: How is it Different?

Many people are accustomed to the source separated system of recycling where each recyclable material is put in different containers, which has been the method for recycling collection in the area for many years. As of July 1st, 2015 AHRC switched to Single stream collection, also known as; mixed recycling, commingled, or single sort recycling, and enables the customers to simply place all of the recycling into one or more containers without sorting by category. This is where AHRC's new sorting facility comes into play. This new facility, termed a MRF (materials recovery facility), has many machines that are operated by AHRC staff to separate each type of recycling into separate bins. With this new machinery, comes new customer practices that can help the process run smoother during the sorting process. It is preferable if customers place all recyclables in the recycling bins loose. When materials are stuffed tightly together it takes time and man power to separate them. Bags used as container liners are not necessary, however they are not prohibited. When materials are bagged, they have to be opened and emptied before going through the sorting process. As always, please remove food and liquids by emptying containers and giving them a quick rinse.

​As with source separated recycling, there are materials that do not go in the curbside bin for pickup. Please only include materials accepted for curbside pickup. Refer to the list of items in red at the bottom of this page that do not go in with other recyclables for curbside pickup but may be recyclable by bringing them to AHRC's facility on Sand Ridge Road.

Certain items from the list above can be brought to AHRC's Facility on Sand Ridge Road to be recycled. 

• food waste
• yard waste
• electronics
• DVDs & CDs
• batteries
• scrap metal
• Styrofoam (board type only, no meat trays, cups, or egg cartons)