In March of 1976, a little over 49 years ago, Marilyn Ortt and Caroline Putnam, two environmentally conscious women, spearheaded the drive for a public recycling center in Marietta. The first site for the Marietta Area Recycling Center (MARC) was located at Post & Butler at the old mill site now known as Marietta Harbor and was run in conjunction with the City of Marietta. Staffing at the time was part time through a program with Community Action as well as volunteers. On any given day you may have seen members of the Ortt, Putnam and Pickering Family smashing cans with a sledge hammer or stacking newspaper in the warehouse. Most of the recyclables went to local markets. Newspaper went to the Salvation Army as they had a baler and newspaper had little value at the time; glass was crushed in barrels on site and went to a company in Mineral Wells, and the aluminum and steel cans were flattened and went to Cremer Iron and Steel Co. in Parkersburg. Materials were loaded the day of the haul onto trucks for transport by Boy Scout groups or others. At this site, MARC would endure a long paper strike which filled the entire warehouse with paper and then subsequently a fire which burned the back of the warehouse down. There were also a long line of companies that got in the recycling business only to get out due to the volatile domestic market. Where materials were hauled changed based on this dynamic and would continue to be the case throughout MARC’s history tempered by the ever increasing demand internationally for materials.

MARC moved in 1986 to behind Sheila’s Hair Shoppe and across from Speedway when the City decided to develop the Marietta Harbor. This Greene Street Site was chosen because at the time there was a recycling operation that had moved into a warehouse adjacent to what is now the Marietta Mills Apartment Complex. This location operated for a short time with Community Action part time support but fully transitioned to volunteers only. There were large wooden drop-off crates for the public to drop materials off in. Two remnants of this site at MARC’s Gilman Ave. location where the Green Shed and the wooden crate for bubble wrap drop-off. During this time period, the rate of recycling increased exponentially in Marietta and by 1992, curbside recycling was made a part of the City Waste Contract to mitigate intake at the MARC Site. This also meant the City was no longer involved with supporting the MARC Site and instead the Washington County Commissioners stepped in to provide support. The location for this property was sold in 1994 and MARC moved to the Gilman Site in 1995.

MARC’s Gilman Site was located on the former BFI site which had the City Waste Contract at the time. Haul costs were covered by the Washington County Commissioners and rent was covered by MARC. This site was supported by Washington County Commissioners until 2010 when they decided that the Solid Waste District Trailers were sufficient to take care of the County Recycling needs since they were facing budget issues. The Volunteers had a public meeting with Recyclers and it was determined there was still a need and support for MARC to continue and from this point on would be 100% run by Volunteers with no government funding. The donation tube was installed at this time as it became a critical part of maintaining operations.

In 2014, when Marilyn Ortt passed away, volunteers met and decided again to continue on with Kathy Ortt along with Becky Wright as co-coordinators. A little over a month later they would face another challenge when the local MRF (Materials Recovery Facility that baled and marketed materials) burned down and new avenues for materials had to be built overnight with the exception of plastics that were going to Mondo Polymers. New channels were created, paper went to Bucyrus to be made into cellulose insulation, cardboard went to Athens-Hocking Recycling (now SORT) to be baled and marketed; glass went to Bradish Glass in Greensburg, Pennsylvania made into new glass or Pink Panther Insulation. These markets, especially paper and cardboard, would have large swings in materials pricing over the normal course of a year but, also, if there was anything that effected domestic/international economies.

This led to MARC Cardboard Sponsorships from local businesses that recycled at MARC and also wanted to support it. These Sponsorships would prove critical to keeping continuous intake in operations when cardboard pricing dropped to below breakeven and in one particular period in 2020 dropped to -$10/ton. Factor in haul costs and it would have been unsustainable without a pivot to Parkersburg Recycling Center for a lower haul cost and Cardboard Sponsorships to pay for the haul.

During this time, Volunteers continued to operate MARC during COVID with limited hours of operation with a full reopening in the summer of 2021. In 2024, the site was flooded and shut down twice within a two week period and from the very rainy spring came a hot summer which the Volunteers worked through for an extended period of time. Rain or shine, if we could get to the site, MARC was open.

In 2025, MARC was provided notice from the new owner of the property that they needed to expand operations to include that of MARC. Volunteers evaluated sites (few), number of volunteers (shortage) and capital ($40-50k) to build a new site and determined that it was not feasible. This was not an easy decision to make but we closed permanently on April 30, 2025, 49 years and 39 days (17,924 days!) from our first day of operation. As of that date, we had recycled close to 40,000 tons of materials at MARC. Pretty amazing with volunteers only. Our final day, we saw many regular recyclers bringing their last loads and the Volunteers gathered on site for a group photo and memories.

MARC did not own much in the way of personal property but 100% of it was rehomed at the time of wind down. The Green Shed will become a chicken coop, the aluminum cage will become a foster/rescue for cats, the blue totes, wooden trailer stairs and steel stairs all were donated to Rural Action who will use them at their site in Athens County at their Hard to Recycle Materials Site. MARC Volunteers left the site spic and span.

MARC Volunteers want to thank all of our sponsors who supported us over the years and insured we always could take materials no matter the market conditions including All Pro Nutrition, Bosner Plumbing Electric & Refrigeration, Colegate Woods Veterinary Hospital, Eye Care Associates of Marietta, Hall Financial Advisors, Marietta Adventure Company, Mattressmax, Peoples Bank, R.W. Miller Plumbing & Electric, Inc., Wildroot Flower Company and Wilson Heating & Cooling.

We also want to thank Mondo Polymers for taking our plastics even though it was a more labor intensive process to get them into the production line.

We want to thank Wetz Transportation for dealing with all the hauls and crazy situations that arose like the time the paper trailer sank a foot into the ground after a flood.

We want to thank the Southeastern Ohio Solid Waste District for providing the steel and green glass trailers and providing them for the wind down in operations.

We want to thank the City of Marietta for assisting the times glass spilled on the ground with cleanup and other times they helped when needed.

We want to thank Rural Action for being our fiscal advisor and helping with grants, their expertise in recycling and introduction to Hard to Recycle Material Events. On June 6th, Rural Action awarded the

Marietta Area Recycling Volunteers the Life Time Achievement Award at their Annual Meeting. Dee Baker and Ellen Bond, accepted the award on behalf of all the volunteers. We are appreciative for the acknowledgement as we feel it was well deserved due to the hard work of all the volunteers.

We want to thank all of our Recyclers that helped by following posted guidelines and helped sort or do something extra on their visit and donated to support our staying open. We will miss everyone that shared in our recycling community.

We also want to thank all of the Volunteers, both past and present that have given of their time over the years. Our current volunteers included, Dee Baker, Ben Ballard (Peoples Bank), Ellen Bond, Laura Bradley, Cindy Brown, Jenny Bruce, Cindy Burnfield, Carla Cassidy-Archer, Les Futrell, Tim Heiss, Loren & Miles Henthorne, Janice Hensler, Anita Kesterson, Jody Kohler and Jim Wright, John Line (Website), Carissa Miller, Angela Montgomery, Tom O’Neil, Kathy Ortt, Sue Price, Bob Ritchey, Esther Salem, Randy Schilling, Elke Schnabel, Russ Schreiber, Tammy Schreiber, Horst Siffrin, John Tillson, Lori Tofaute, and Susan Wunderlich.

MARC’s physical site may be gone but we had the best Recyclers and they will continue to do so at the various sites available. The MARC Volunteers agree that we need to continue to support recycling through continued updates of the Marietta Area Recycling Facebook Page with information on SEOJSWD Schedules, Special Collections and Recycling Facts. We will continue to be a part of the Marietta Earth Day Celebration/Recycling Education and we also plan on working with Rural Action in the future for Hard to Recycle Materials Events. Stay tuned and keep recycling!

What are the options now for recycling in Washington County and surrounding areas? The City of Marietta (residents only) has Rumpke curbside recycling and Muskingum Township (residents only) have drop off in Devola/Oak Grove thru Kimble as their waste carrier which includes recycling.

The Southeastern Ohio Joint Solid Waste District (SEOJSWD) operates green trailers that are on a schedule throughout the County (Go to Wasteabate.org). Most of these sites have drop-off available between 2 to 6 days a month with the exception of the new Warren Site at the Old Warren Elementary School which is full time. These sites will only successfully operate if people follow the posted guidelines for materials. Be neighborly, because there is a finite space in a trailer, breakdown of cardboard and consolidation of your load will be necessary so that as many recyclers as possible can drop their loads off.

If the green trailers are full when you go, call SEOJSWD and advocate for more service.

This is the first time their system will be dealing with all county recycling since its inception. There may need to be some fine tuning to make it function at its best so provide feedback if needed to SEOJSWD.

Kathy Ortt

Marietta, OH