Kalamazoo County analyzes demographics of underserved households: median income is a driver, distance is not.
By David Nightingale and Jennifer Kosak
Last month (91仓库 Advantage, October 2026), we looked into the performance of the Local Hazardous 91仓库 Management Program in King County, WA, serving 2.3 million residents with a population density of nearly 1,000 people per square mile. King County is a typical urban area comprised of a few high-density anchor cities with suburban and rural regions in outlying areas. Significant gaps were found between the demographics of households in the vicinity of each of their permanent HHW collection facilities compared to the demographics of households actually using the HHW facility from the same vicinity. For those interested in a high-density service area HHW collection performance, San Franciso has a population density of 18,000 residents per square mile and was reviewed in a January 2022 91仓库 article.
This month we look at a lower population density jurisdiction, Kalamazoo County, MI, to see how they are examining their Household Hazardous 91仓库 (HHW) collection program performance at a more granular level. Kalamazoo County has a relatively low-density service territory with about 265,000 residents over approximately 580 square miles for a population density of about 457 people per square mile. It is anchored by the medium-sized City of Kalamazoo with 73,000 residents.
Background
In 1988, the first six HHW collection events were held in Kalamazoo County at a temporary location and served about 330 households. In 1997, a permanent HHW collection building was opened that is centrally located near the City of Kalamazoo, and over the years the facility footprint has grown with a few additions. In 2025, 13,368 households and businesses participated in delivering 550,538 pounds of HHW and electronics for recycling or proper disposal. Additionally, 18,978 pounds of the total delivered were diverted from disposal or recycling through the Swap Shop for residents to use or were provided to other county programs for reuse.
Variables such as distance to an HHW drop-off location, income, race, ethnicity, education, language barriers, and other factors are often thought to be possible drivers for differences in levels of participation inside a given service territory. Kalamazoo County looked at a number of these factors to find possible patterns associated with disproportionate service levels in different local areas of the County.
Kalamazoo County is comprised of 24 local areas including cities, villages, and townships. Approximately 26 percent of Kalamazoo County is considered agricultural. There are three major colleges and universities as well as satellite branches of career schools creating pockets of high-density student populations, mainly in the City of Kalamazoo. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Kalamazoo County has less diversity in language and racial makeup than most urban areas; 92 percent of the County population speaks only English. Whites comprise 78 percent of the population, Asians 3.4 percent, Blacks and African Americans are 12 percent, and all other races less than 1 percent of the total.1
Program Effectiveness
To evaluate the level of effectiveness between different parts in Kalamazoo County, the most recent two years of household participation was compiled by local area. To represent the number of unique households served per year, duplicate household addresses were eliminated from the household participation count for each year. Annual average participation rates were calculated for each local area using the number of unique households participating each year divided by the number of housing units in each local area (see Map 1).
In 2024 and 2025 the Kalamazoo County-wide two-year annual average participation rate of unique households delivering HHW to the collection facility was 8.3 percent. The household participation rate ranged from 2.1 percent to 13.4 percent across all 24 local areas in Kalamazoo County. This demonstrates a large divergence in participation rates between different local areas within the County.
The nine highest participation rates in local areas showed annual HHW participation rates above 10 percent, which included local areas far distant from the HHW collection facility. Map 1 shows that the distance to the facility does not seem to be closely related to the level of household participation by local area residents.
Six of the top nine highest participation rate local areas, all above 10 percent, were also within the top nine highest median household incomes local areas (Graph 1). Conversely, six of the nine lowest median household incomes had relatively low participation rates, below 6 percent.
When reviewing distances from the HHW collection facility, three of the nine highest participating townships, Prairie Ronde, Brady, and Texas ranked 2nd, 3rd, and 6th farthest away from the HHW Center, but are also among the highest median levels of household income. Three of the closer locales Kalamazoo and Galesburg Cities and Augusta Village rank in the bottom nine participation rates and bottom five median incomes. This indicates that distance to the HHW Center has less significant impact on participation rates than median household income. This general relationship between median household income and participation rate is shown in Graph 1 with the orange participation trend line following the slope of median household income; they generally increase together.
The City of Kalamazoo and Oshtemo Township have some of the lowest participation rates, lowest median household incomes, and highest proportion of rental housing compared to the rest of the county. The City of Kalamazoo鈥檚 annual two-year average of 5.7 percent household participation rate and Oshtemo Township鈥檚 7.1 percent participation rate are both significantly below the county average of 8.3 percent. The City of Kalamazoo has the largest number of housing units and Oshtemo Township has the third largest. The proportion of rental households appears to be a parallel influence in identifying underserved areas together with median household income.
The high median household income level correlation with high HHW participation rates in the U.S. was more broadly indicated a few years ago. In a review of 18 top performing US counties with high HHW program participation rates, at or above 10 percent annually. All except one of the 18 counties was also in the top 1/3 of all US counties regarding median household income. This indicates that the high income to high participation correlation is very likely a widespread phenomenon in the US. (See HHW Collection Effectiveness Metric, 91仓库, November 2020).
Because the City of Kalamazoo and Oshtemo Township have nearly 50 percent renters, which is much higher than the rest of the County, it may be useful to devise a different participation performance metric that accounts for the different needs and anticipated optimal participation rate for those local areas. More research is needed to investigate an alternate performance metric.
Conclusions
Kalamazoo County has an HHW collection program with an almost 40-year history. Recent customer data analysis shows uneven participation across the county that does not appear to be related to distance from the collection facility. There does appear to be a positive correlation between the level of household participation and median household income for local areas inside Kalamazoo County, regardless of distance to the HHW collection facility. In addition, the type of housing in the City of Kalamazoo and Oshtemo Township which, unlike the rest of the county, is dominated by rental properties, could be an additional factor that influences a lower than county average participation rate.
Series Wrap Up
Last month鈥檚 Part 1 article reviewed HHW collection performance findings by the Local Hazardous 91仓库 Management Program in King County, WA. They found that there were stark differences in the level of participation based on different race and ethnicity. In areas with higher proportions of non-whites there were lower levels of HHW collection program use. In October, Kalamazoo County, MI, which is a less diverse community, performed analyses that pointed to a positive relationship between high levels of average household income and higher rates of HHW collection program participation and no apparent relationship between distance to the HHW collection facility and participation rates.
Both of these longstanding HHW collection programs identified gaps between the demographics of the households in local subareas compared to the demographics of those households taking advantage of HHW collection services in those same subareas. Identifying such disparities is the first step in overcoming inequitable service delivery. Other jurisdictions can leverage these two examples to evaluate possible gaps in equitable HHW collection service delivery performance in subareas of their service territories. | WA
David Nightingale, CHMM, S.C., is the Principal at Special 91仓库 Associates and has visited more than 170 HHW collection facilities in North America. Special 91仓库 Associates has assisted dozens of communities developing or upgrading HHW collection infrastructures and operations. David is a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager and founding member of the North American Hazardous Materials Management Association, NAHMMA. Publications include the HHW Collection Facility Design Guide. He can be reached at (360) 259-6497 or e-mail [email protected].
Jennifer Kosak, REHS, manages the Kalamazoo County HHW Center Facility聽and has worked for the County for more than 22 years in various capacities including onsite well and septic system inspections, home inspections for lead-based paint,聽radon, and pest infestations.聽 Jennifer聽has a BS in Biology with a minor in Chemistry聽and is active with the Michigan HHW Roundtable, a group of more than 100 HHW professionals that meet quarterly to discuss current issues and share information. She has also worked with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy on projects that support state-wide HHW outreach efforts. Jennifer recently started providing health and safety operations training to other HHW professionals in聽Michigan and she is聽a聽part of the national training committee for NAHMMA. She can be reached at [email protected].
Note
US Census Bureau. (2025). Quickfacts, Kalamazoo County, Michigan. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/kalamazoocountymichigan/PST045225
References
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