On a beautiful (and unseasonably hot) day during the first week of September, I visited the Rumpke Recycling Center in Saint Bernard with several fellow CAM colleagues. As we pulled into the parking lot, dodging giant waste-hauling semis, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Before our fieldtrip, I had envisioned workers picking through trash piles on conveyor belts but was clueless about how the recycling process actually works.

The recycling facility’s public tour was eye-opening. One of Rumpke’s education specialists guided us (20 folks in total) through the Center, explaining the sorting process along the way. Yes, human labor initially plays a big part in separating one type of recyclable from another—cardboard, paper, glass, metal, and plastic—but a lot of innovative technologies are also at work. Magnets pull steel objects from waste streams; reverse magnetism “pushes” aluminum cans away from plastics; optical scanners enhanced with AI programming separate “natural” plastics from colored plastics. By the end, consolidated bales of like-materials are packed-up and sold to other companies, who then transform the used materials into new products.

All this is super-cool—and great for the planet, not to mention the economy—but what’s in it for the museum?

Recycling is a major component of CAM’s sustainability plan. Quoting from CAM’s sustainability webpage, the “Cincinnati Art Museum is committed to the social and environmental wellness of future generations through policies encouraging sustainability.” And these policies, in turn, support the museum’s core mission of contributing to a more vibrant Cincinnati.

Stewarding CAM’s sustainability initiatives are the 14 members of the museum’s Sustainability Committee, better known as The Green Team. Hailing from departments across the museum, we plan, encourage, and help implement a range of sustainable practices:
-    recycling and waste diversion;
-    facility upgrades and energy consumption reduction;
-    connections to and partnerships with like-minded organizations devoted to sustainability.

I felt a bit overwhelmed after visiting Rumpke that day. I witnessed huge amounts of materials entering the facility—all being sorted and processed—and I realized the sum is a fraction of the waste we humans produce with many more tons entering landfills. Despite that, I was heartened and excited by the innovative recycling technologies in action and am looking forwarded to seeing more advances in the future. 

In the meantime, we will keep doing our part here at the Cincinnati Art Museum.