If your garage is bursting at the seams with old furniture, appliances, or mystery boxes from 2005, you’re in luck—Campbell County’s Spring cleanup events are right around the corner.
Campbell County Solid Waste Coordinator Megan Clere Abrams gave an update on all the county’s recycling programs at the March 5 Campbell County Fiscal Court meeting.
The Campbell County cleanup events are free dump days for all Campbell County residents. The Spring 2025 cleanup is scheduled for Friday, May 9, and Saturday, May 10, at three drop-off locations.
- Frederick’s Landing, 100 Frederick’s Landing in Widler.
- Pendery Park, 4113 Williams Lane in Melbourne.
- Campbell County Road Department, 1175 Racetrack Road in Alexandria.
Furniture, mattresses, yard debris, trash, and electronics (no TVs) are accepted at Frederick’s Landing and Pendery Park.
The road department accepts all of the previously listed items and appliances, scrap metal, lead-acid batteries, electronics (limit one TV), propane tanks, and tires (limit eight).
The events are for residents only. A photo ID or proof of residency is required.
Clere Abrams said over 4,200 residents participated in last year’s spring and fall cleanups. The county collected about 570 tons of trash, over 1 million pounds, and collectively, they recycled 207 tons of tires, electronics, scrap metal, and propane tanks.
“A lot of the material that gets collected for recycling that should be, but there’s not necessarily an exciting market, like a big payoff to pull that stuff in and look for a place to constructively dispose of it, right,” Campbell County Judge/Executive Steve Pendery said. “So how does it work out when we have a collection event financially, and the only reason I’m bringing this up is that the public needs to know that this is something that we do that is a value and actually costs a little something.”
Campbell County has to contract out for recycling services because it doesn’t have a recycling center. The county uses general funds to pay for that contract.
“What you want to think of is you’re not just reusing material, but you’re also saving room in the landfill,” Clere Abrams said. “Everything that goes into the landfill does have a lifeline. We have to close the landfill eventually, so we want to make sure that we have as much room as possible.”
In addition to the cleanup days, the county runs a voucher program year-round.
Campbell County households can get four free vouchers to dispose of household trash throughout the program year (July 1 through June 30). Vouchers are valid upon receipt until the end of the voucher period.
Residents can get two vouchers for each voucher period. Voucher Period 1 runs from July 1 through Dec. 31, and Voucher Period 2 runs from Jan. 1 through June 30.
The vouchers are good for one truckload or one 8-foot trailer load. If stacked, the pile must be under 3 feet tall. The resident is responsible for additional expenses.
Under the program, household trash, furniture, mattresses, yard waste and home renovation debris are accepted. The items can be dropped off at the Rumpke Covington Transfer Station at 4399 Boron Drive in Covington or the Rumpke Pendleton County Landfill at 1374 Bryan Griffin Road in Butler.
Applicants must provide proof of Campbell County residency.
The program began in January last year. Clere Abrams said the county has handed out 360 vouchers, of which 177 have been redeemed. Last year, the program saw 47 tons of trash between the two drop-off locations, with Alexandria and southern Campbell taking the most advantage of the vouchers.
“We had a 49% success rate in our first year, which is pretty good,” she said.
Last year, Campbell County also rebranded its recycling bins to make them easily identifiable. The bins are bright blue, and signage on the front shows what is acceptable for recycling.
“I have seen a dramatic and significant decrease in illegal dumping in and around the bins, which is exactly what I was hoping that they would do,” Clere-Abrams said.
The six recycling locations are:
- Campbell County Animal Services: 1989 Poplar Ridge Road, Melbourne
- Campbell County Clerk’s Office: 8330 W Main St., Alexandria
- Campbell County Senior Center: 3504 Alexandria Pike, Highland Heights
- Morscher Park: 4800 Mary Ingles Highway, Silver Grove
- Pendery Park: 4113 Williams Lane, Melbourne
- Southern Campbell Fire Department: 050 Racetrack Road, Alexandria
“I just want to thank you (Clere Abrams) for what you do throughout the year,” Campbell County Commissioner Tom Lampe said. “You are clearly somebody that really likes what you do, and you’re very good at it.”
The drop-off recycling locations also include the Hefty ReNew program.
The program allows residents to collect certain items in orange Hefty ReNew bags, including plastic straws, utensils, bubble wrap, chip bags and more.
The orange Hefty ReNew bag can be purchased at your local grocery store for under $10. You can also request a free starter kit here. Once securely tied, the bag can be placed in your Rumpke curbside bin or at one of the six recycling drop-off locations.
Clere Abrams said the updated bin signage has decreased “wish cycling.” Wish cycling is putting items in the bin, hoping that they will get recycled, or it’s an item someone doesn’t know that is not recyclable.
To help with wish cycling, the county has a new search tool and a game on its website. Residents can search for over 240 items. For each item, there are multiple ways to recycle or dispose of it, and all of the options are local.
Those wishing to dispose of hazardous waste can do so at the hazardous waste event on November 1 at Thomas More Stadium, 7950 Freedom Way in Florence.
Another new recycling program implemented last year was the Reboot Electronics Reuse and Recycling electronic drop-off bins.
Electronics allowed in the bins include anything that takes a battery or has a cord; however, due to their size, these bins do not accept TVs or CRT monitors. Lithium-ion batteries are also accepted.
The locations with the electronic recycling bins are:
- Campbell County Public Library, Cold Spring Branch: 3920 Alexandria Pike (next to the water/sanitation bills box.)
- Pendery Park: 4113 Williams Lane, in Melbourne (next to the recycling bins.)
- Southern Campbell Fire Department: 1050 Racetrack Road in Alexandria (next to the recycling bins.)
“We only accepted electronics for recycling during our spring and fall cleanups, but now you can recycle electronics anytime throughout the year,” Clere Abrams said. “These are pretty much 24 drop-off bins for these electronic items.”
From the time the bins were set up in late August through December 2024, the county collected 4,841 pounds of electronics.
The county also runs a school vape recycling program through the environmental stewardship grant from the UK extension office. The program started in 2023 with five middle and high schools in Campbell County. In its program history, the county has collected 286 vapes.
The county now has an agreement with the Northern Kentucky Health Department to expand that program. The health department will continue collecting confiscated vapes but expand it to all kindergarten through grade 12 schools.
“Also, what they bring to the table is the education portion of that,” Clere Abrams said. “So, I don’t do a whole lot of education on the nicotine cessation, but Casey Baker over there at the health department, she’ll be going into schools and doing a lot of the education on why it’s not good to vape and why it’s not good to just throw it in the recycling bin or the trash bin.”
The county’s trash for cash program, a fundraising opportunity for non-profit organizations to pick up roadside litter, opened its applications on March 1. Last year, 27 cleanups were held, with 254 volunteers and 8,000 pounds of trash collected. Non-profits can apply for that program through the end of September. The season officially kicks off on April 1.
