Each year the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio receives more than 1 million tons of materials that go into the landfill. A majority of those materials could be diverted through recycling, reuse or composting. On Wednesday, SWACO unveiled its annual community impact report during a Columbus Metropolitan Club discussion that showed in 2020, there was an initial uptick in waste during the pandemic of 30%, which later dropped off. "You don't have all that waste coming in from commercial entities, which would include schools and small businesses. Initially, that was offset by a tremendous surge in residential," said Ty Marsh, executive director of the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio. "What we were finding is that more people were home, so therefore there was more residential waste being generated. We believe that initially, people were cleaning out their basements and were looking for things to do."