Standing by one of their recycling receptacles are (from left) Kristin Hall, City of Cleveland Sustainability Manager, Anand Natarajan, City of Cleveland Energy Manager, Rita McKenzie, West Side Market Administrator and West Side Market intern. Source: City of Clevelan
Placing recycling receptacles where people see them every day has paid off in a fantastic way for the City of Cleveland Mayor's Office of Sustainability.
The Office's mission is to promote green strategies throughout city departments and with local citizens.
So they thought, sure most people practice recycling at home. But what about when they are away from home? They are certainly generating plenty of trash that has recycling potential.
The solution? The department decided to bring recycling to where the people congregate. Downtown of course!
Think about how smart this is. People know all about recycling in their homes. Placing your milk jugs, plastic bottles, glass bottles, aluminum cans and old newspapers in recycling bins is now a habit for millions of Americans.
But where else do citizens generate trash? How about where they work? Or where they go for dining, attractions or just plain hanging out? Or where tourists visit? Downtown was a logical place to start this outreach program.
Kristin Hall is the Sustainability Manager for the City of Cleveland and noted that a main goal of the downtown recycling receptacles is to provide more public opportunities to divert materials from landfills, while increasing visibility of the city's waste reduction initiatives. For a city the size of Cleveland with nearly 400,000 residents, hundreds of thousands of annual visitors and several thousand employees, you can imagine that's a big undertaking.
One idea they had to promote recycling was to strategically place recycling receptacles next to existing waste receptacles to provide a recycling option and increase the likelihood that the receptacles would be properly used.
The recycling receptacles were placed in high-traffic areas, including popular locations such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Great Lakes Science Center, First Energy Stadium and the Ohio City neighborhood along West 25th St. near the West Side Market.
The payoff since they started in February, 2014? Forty two-tons of recycled material. That's an enormous amount of tonnage that is now being re-purposed instead of taking up valuable space in a landfill.
The first item placed in Cleveland's recycling receptacles. Since then 42 tons of recycled materials have been collected
The project was not an easy one. The city had to arrange for a recycling truck to pick up the refuse in the downtown area, a route they don't normally take. Locations had to be selected.
They also had to purchase a bunch of commercial recycling containers, about 70, from The Park Catalog.
But the small six-person Office of Sustainability was able to put it all together and from all indicators (best exemplified by the huge mound of recycled material) the program is a great success.
It reduces the impact on the landfill, it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, reuses all this material and raises Cleveland's profile as a sustainably-minded community.
Hall said she was very excited "to see this coming together after a long road procuring and installing the recycle bins."
In fact, when the program first started she would walk up to people placing their recyclables in the containers and thank them.
"At first I got a weird reaction," she said, but when she explained the program to them, there were many positive comments and even photos shared.
"The presence of recycling bins downtown is a visible way for residents, employees and tourists to understand that Cleveland is committed to sustainability and to do their part for recycling," said Jenita McGowan, Chief of Sustainability for the City, "These bins not only provide opportunities for the public to recycle in high traffic areas downtown, but also increase the city's recycling rates. With 2014 being the Year of Zero Waste, we look forward to collecting metric information from these bins to inform future expansion of recycling in public spaces."
Recycling receptacles part of overall sustainability program
This initiative for reducing waste is supported wholeheartedly by Mayor Frank G. Jackson's Sustainable Cleveland program. Funding for the recycling receptacles came from the City of Cleveland's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, which is part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Recycling receptacle with sloga
The recycling receptacles come with distinguishable blue lids that let people know these are not your regular commercial trash receptacles. The containers feature a sign indicating which materials are to be discarded there. They include: plastic containers (designated #1-7), glass containers of all colors, aluminum cans, paper, cardboard and magazines. All items people visiting downtown certainly use.
Another strategy the city might consider is to add the actual end products of a recycling program downtown. That could be displayed in the form of recycled plastic benches or recycled plastic picnic tables at city parks. Many cities are now encouraging schools, universities, government agencies and even places of worship to purchase and display products made with recycled content. This shows the public the actual, real-time benefits of their recycling efforts up close.
It's no secret. Americans generate a bunch of waste. But when you are downtown, you really don't have many options to reduce that waste like you can in your kitchen or your living room. While out and about, people are going to buy water bottles, soda cans, etc., and buy food in containers.
But now in Cleveland, the Office of Sustainability has brought the solution directly to consumers. From the volume of recyclables recovered, people who participate are obviously grateful they are able to do the right thing with their trash. We're sure the planet is grateful as well.
P.S. A note on the recycling receptacles says, "Together, We're Building a Thriving Green City on a Blue Lake."
To read more about the Sustainable Cleveland program click here.