For years SWACO employees like that one have been teaching students and others to reduce, reuse and recycle in an effort to extend the life of Franklin County’s landfill. And people have been paying attention. John Schnell places some recyclables in a bin in Goodale Park. Schnell’s an avid recycler.

“For lasting generations, I guess. You know, for the prosperity of the Earth,” Schnell said.

There are more than 200 of these drop box locations around Franklin County. SWACO’s John Remy says recycling at drop off locations increased 85 percent during the last four or five years.

“In 2008, the increase was 21 percent. That amounts to about 13,000 tons we collected at the drop off locations last year,” Remy said.

And the curb side recycling service in the city of Columbus has increased. From 2006 to 2007 the trash hauling company Rumpke saw a 15 percent increase in recycling. And a five percent increase the following year. Rumpke’s Jonathan Kissell said it collected 13,515 tons since 2006 form the curb service alone.

“We’ve also seen an increase in the drop box participation which the drop off boxes is a SWACO program and that material is transported to Rumpke’s facility,” Kissell said.

More than 32,000 tons have been picked up in drop boxes over the last three years. Kissell said the program has been very successful.

“We’re encouraged by the statistics we’ve seen with increase over the past three years. That’s very good in our eyes. We certainly have the capability to improve,” he said. Trash falls from a large truck into a pit at the landfill.

SWACO’s Remy said the amount of garbage hauled in was down 26,000 tons last year. And it’s down 10 percent so far this year. Since SWACO is not state or federally funded, it gets its money to run operations from the fee it charges per ton to use the landfill.

Remy said the landfill’s tonnage has been down for several years. Like other companies, SWACO makes projections every year – on how many tons of garbage it thinks it will get.

“We came underneath that tonnage. And that is a problem. Would you chalk that up to your recycling program? Some of the reduction is due to the good efforts on a part of folks in Franklin County recycling. Primarily most of it is due to the economy we believe,” Remy said.

So SWACO is considering in its words a “short term fix” – accepting waste from other counties. “Bring your trash over here.”

But not all counties. Just the ones nearby, like Pickaway County. Remy said trash in Pickaway goes to a landfill in Cincinnati or maybe Logan County. He said bringing it here would save Pickaway County money. And it would help fund SWACO’s operations.

Remy would not predict how he thinks SWACO trustees will vote next month on the proposal, but he said he thinks they’re torn.

“Uh…wait a minute, we tell everybody to save landfill space, but, hey, we’ve gotta get enough trash in here to cover expenses and everything,” Remy said.

Back at Goodale Park John Schnell, the avid recycler, is not a fan of SWACO’s proposal.

“I’m not a big believer in bringing in other people’s trash you know to generate money. I’m sure we generate enough here in Columbus that we don’t need to bring in other people’s refuse,” Schnell said.

If the plan is approved SWACO said it will only accept enough trash to balance out its finances.

Rastra Technologies manufactures building panels made by mixing polystyrene and concrete. The company says its product, which can be used in commercial and residential construction, is fire-, termite- and moisture-proof, capable of withstanding high winds and has a high insulation value. The payoff for SWACO, according to spokesman John Remy, is the reduced volume of waste that will be sent to the Grove City landfill.

“Our landfill receives at least five tractor-trailer loads of polystyrene daily,” Remy says. “Add all that up, that comes to about 87,000 cubic yards or about 6% of our annual landfill capacity. So that’s going to save us a lot of space.”

Recycling instead of landfilling that amount will save the authority about $700,000 a year, according to Remy. He says Rastra will employ between 40 and 50 people in the next three to four years when the new plant goes into production. SWACO and Rastra collaborated several years ago when local school children collected polystyrene lunch trays. The trays were converted into material used to build the walls for the structure known as “My House” at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

Each year some, 4-thousand students take such a trip to the landfill. All field trips have rules. Rule number one of a field trip to the Franklin county dump. Don’t call it a dump. It’s a sanitary landfill.

Making the important distinction and leading the tour is Kristi Michaels, education and community outreach coordinator for the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio – or SWACO – which manages the landfill.

Her goal: teach kids, who then can teach mom and dad about the three r’s of trash disposal: reduce, reuse and recycle.

The field trip is free and SWACO even pays for the bus if the school is in Franklin County.

After the lecture and the slide show, kids get to see the landfill up close. The kids pile back into the school bus to get a look at the huge pile of trash, which at 170 feet is among the highest spots in Franklin County.