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County’s Recycling Education Program Receives Honor
The Miami-Dade County Department of Solid Waste Management (DSWM), Miami, has won the 2011 Achievement Award from the National Association of Counties (NACo) for its ongoing curbside recycling education campaign.
Kathleen Woods-Richardson, DSWM solid waste director, says, “We are proud to win this prestigious award. It took a significant effort to educate our customers when we first converted to our current single-stream recycling program. We wanted to keep that momentum and excitement going for recycling, and our education efforts have continued paying off, as we are consistently seeing excellent results.”
The DSWM began transitioning from its dual-stream recycling program to a new single-stream program in June 2008. The transition was completed by the end of 2008. The more than 59,600 tons collected in the first fiscal year of the new recycling program, which ran from Oct. 1, 2008, through Sept. 30, 2009, was nearly double the tonnage of recyclables collected in the last fiscal year of the old dual-stream recycling program. In its second year, Miami-Dade curbside recycling customers recycled 60,808 tons of glass, plastic, aluminum, steel and paper through the single-stream program.
The DSWM’s curbside recycling education program involves several components and is presented in English, Spanish and Creole. The DSWM reaches out to residents via print and electronic advertisements, campaign literature, news articles, presentations, e-mail alerts, educational videos and the Web.
The DSWM provides curbside recycling service to 348,000 single-family households in the unincorporated areas of Miami-Dade County and to residences in 21 participating municipalities. -Article Courtesy of Recycling Today News
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