Athens’ recycling services contract with Athens-Hocking County Recycling Centers Inc., or AHRC, costs the city $313,900 per year but does not provide services to tenants of commercial property locations.
Whether the city provides recycling services to local tenants depends on the size of the building, David Riggs, director of code enforcement, said. The city’s solid waste contract with AHRC provides recycling services to buildings with fewer than 10 units.
Buildings with more than 10 units, or apartments, are considered to be commercial entities, Riggs said. Although the complexes are located in the city, they are not included in the city’s residential solid waste collection and recycling contract due to their size.
“You wouldn't want to have 100 cans sitting (outside) one of these big complexes, so they use dumpsters,” Riggs said. “When you get to that type of system, it's really different. It's not residential collection anymore.”
In March 2021, Andrew Guidarelli, a senior studying aviation flight, noticed the recycling bin at his residence at River Park Apartments had been removed without explanation.
“I tried asking landlords about it, and it seemed like the people at the leasing office didn’t even know what had happened,” Guidarelli said. “The bins were just gone, and I didn't think that was right.”
As head of the environmental subcommittee of the OU Young Democratic Socialists of America, Guidarelli and his fellow committee members started a petition to influence River Park Apartments to once again provide recycling services. The petition gained 145 signatures, but no further action was taken, Guidarelli said. He said they are working on other means to try to get recycling rather than direct petitioning.
“We actually sent a couple people to the City Council meeting last week,” he said.
Ella Shroll, a fifth-year studying recreation management who is also a tenant of River Park Apartments, said she remembered when recycling services were offered but also never received an explanation as to why the bins were removed.
Shroll is also the communications team leader of Campus Recycling and Zero Waste on OU’s campus. She said her position has enabled her to continue recycling despite it not being available at her apartment complex.
“I am fortunate to work with Campus Recycling, so I can just take my recycling to where I work and recycle it, but not everybody wants to take the time to do that,” Shroll said.
There are currently no recycling bins located at River Park Apartments, Alicia Pae, the leasing and marketing manager, said.
Pae and other River Park managers declined to comment on why recycling services were discontinued.
Another Athens rental agency, Cornwell Properties, said recycling availability depends on building location. Court Street locations are able to use the recycling containers provided by the city, Kara Cozort, an agent at Cornwell Properties, said.
Cornwell Properties’ C-Side Apartments used to have a recycling contract, but services were eventually discontinued. However, after many OU student-tenants requested recycling be provided to them specifically, plans were made for recycling services to return to C-Side this spring, Cozort said.
Students who live in buildings with 10 or more units and do not live in the franchise district, or Uptown, may not have recycling services because the city does not have jurisdiction to require commercial property owners to provide recycling, Riggs said. It is recommended that tenants ask their landlord to provide recycling services.
“The city would support (recycling services being added at commercial properties), but there's really nothing we can do to make them do that,” Riggs said. “We are really interested in everybody recycling. It saves people money. It saves the planet … We just don't have a way to force these big units to provide recycling for their tenants.”
