At long last Rumpke...and a lesson on publicity

So, Mount Rumpke is bursting at the seams.

They've been running bus tours for a while now on top of what appears to be some kind of underground fire smoldering. Heck, they've been looking into expanding the mountain of trash for a few years now.

Mount Rumpke, in case you weren't aware, is our local landfill, a giant monstrosity of a pile of trash begun by a local family that started out taking in trash to feed to their pigs and eventually worked their way into being one of the largest sanitation corporations around, taking in trash and recyclables, renting out port-a-lets, funding a softball team, and even inspiring a local bluegrass band.

That's not the story here, though.

The story here is a little change in their recycling collection business locally. They're been doing curbside recycling for a number of years, charging us eight or so bucks a month to haul away PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2) plastics, glass bottles, paper, and cardboard - as long as it was broken down. In that time, I've gotten increasingly frustrated with friends in other markets who are able to throw all of their plastics into their bins while I have an increasing pile of polypropylene (#5) plastic - yogurt tubs, deli tubs, whatever.

But, this past week we got a revelation.

On Thursday I heard a news story on NPR that Rumpke and the City of Cincinnati were announcing a big increase in the products that Rumpke's curbside recycling would be accepting, adding in all plastic bottles (but not butter tubs) and pizza boxes as they had improved their recycling processing plant. More materials into the recycling bin mean less into my trash can and less into the every-growing Mount Rumpke.

I saw the same story on two different six o'clock local news programs, but I didn't get all the details in either quick little news blurb, so the next morning I headed onto the web to get the full story.

Nothing on channel 5's website...nothing on the Enquirer's website...nothing on channels 19 or 12...heck, the only two blurbs I could find were one on channel 9's website saying that there would be an announcement coming Thursday afternoon and a four-sentence story on the NPR website without any more details than I heard knew before. That last site directed me to the City of Cincinnati's website to find the full list of recyclables - which hadn't been updated since 2007.

From there, onward to the Rumple Recycling website because they must have the new list posted. I mean, the news had just given Rumpke as much positive press in that one day as they'll likely get in the full year.

At least when I called them, they'd know all the details, right? Nope. They just directed me to their website where I actually pointed out to them that the updated list wasn't there.

They wouldn't dare not have all their ducks in a row, right?

Nope, they dropped the ball in every way possible.

They didn't make sure they had updated their website.

They didn't make sure the news websites had any information about the coverage.

They didn't make sure the City of Cincinnati had the info front and center.

They didn't make sure their employees had the new list.

C'mon folks, if you know your company is making an announcement, you have the website already updated - or at least ready to be updated at the touch of a button the moment the announcement is made.

You make sure every front line employee knows the details and is ready to field all calls about the announcement.

You certainly don't drop every possible ball when you get finally some good publicity.

PS - The only thing I can get out of the Rumpke folks is that they're now taking all plastic bottles but not butter tubs. The phone folks couldn't tell me what numbers or specific plastics they were going to be taking, just that they wouldn't take butter tubs.

They are also taking in pizza boxes, too.

Of course, none of this helps me get rid of those deli containers and yogurt tubs. They're neither plastic bottles nor butter tubs. It also doesn't help me get rid of the clamshell packages that I keep finding stupidly used.