Asheville Residents May Have Another Good Reason to Recycle

Beginning in October, Asheville residents may be able to add retail discounts to the long list of reasons to recycle. Already a leader in recycling in North Carolina, Asheville hopes to increase residents’ curbside recycling participation by distributing larger 95-gallon recycling containers and by implementing a points system. This system would allow residents to accrue points that would transfer to discounts at Bed Bath & Beyond, Staples, Dick’s Sporting Goods and several local stores. Read more about Asheville’s recycling efforts online at Asheville’s Citizen-Times.com.

Source:

“Bigger cans, retail discounts to boost Asheville recycling”

By Joel Burgess

May 13, 2011

Asheville’s Homepage Citizen-Times.com

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110513/NEWS/305130036/Asheville-aims-boost-recycling?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage

"Practicing Green Pays" Litter Prevention Awards Contest

Hosted by Keep North Carolina Beautiful - Enter to Win $500!

Let your environmental good deeds be recognized by entering Keep NC Beautiful’s (KNCB) 12^th annual Litter Prevention Awards Contest. Apply for a chance to win $500 for litter prevention, recycling and community greening programs initiated in 2010.

Government agencies, school/youth groups and non-profits are eligible to apply, and up to three $500 prize awards will be awarded for each category. Applications are based on the following criterion: response to need, litter prevention, measurability, education, partnerships, innovation and plans for award funds. The application process is designed to be basic and require minimal staff time.

Applications can be downloaded at www.keepncbeautiful.org and are due by March 31. For more information, contact KNCB Deputy Director Heather Thompson at (919)783-6993 or hthompson@keepncbeautiful.org.

The 2010 winners included: Johnson & Wales University (JWU), Charlotte; Polk County Appearance Commission, Tryon; Homeless Helping Homeless (HHH), Charlotte; Keep Richmond Beautiful, Rockingham; Blue Ridge Elementary, Warrensville; Craven Community College, New Bern; Haw River Assembly, Bynum; Casa Esperanza Montessori, Raleigh; Solid Waste Environmental Education Panel (SWEEP), Rutherfordton: and Keep Belmont Beautiful, Belmont.

The N.C. Department of Transportation and N.C. Beverage Association are sponsors of this contest.

Keep NC Beautiful is a nonprofit organization that engages and empowers individuals and organizations to take greater responsibility to keep North Carolina beautiful.

Contact: Heather Thompson

Deputy Director

Keep NC Beautiful

(919)783-6993 office

(919)215-4196 cell

hthompson@keepncbeautiful.org

www.keepncbeautiful.org

Another incentive campaign from Coke – Get Caught Green Handed

August 5, 2010, Charlotte, NC—Coca-Cola and Harris Teeter are joining the city of Charlotte in an effort to promote new recycling bins in the Center City—and those "caught" recycling can win cash, food and drinks.

Building on their successful curbside Recycle and Win program, Coca-Cola and Harris Teeter are launching a Get Caught Green Handed campaign to highlight Charlotte’s 15 new recycling bins in the Center City. An incognito prize patrol will "catch" a person using the new recycling bins and reward the person with a $25 Harris Teeter gift card, as well as a deli sandwich and 20-ounce Coke from Harris Teeter’s uptown store.

Each of the 288 winners over the three-month program will receive a giant “I Got Caught Green Handed” foam hand to show off to co-workers to encourage them to recycle. In addition, Coca-Cola will promote the new recycling bins with vend snipes on hundreds of Coke machines throughout Uptown Charlotte and on posters in food outlets and in office break rooms.

“Coca-Cola is proud to be a part of this fun and exciting partnership with Harris Teeter and the City of Charlotte to promote uptown recycling,” said Lauren Steele, VP Corporate Affairs for Coca-Cola Consolidated. “Our curbside Recycle and Win program was very successful in promoting residential recycling and creating recycling opportunities in Uptown is the next logical step.”

“Harris Teeter is excited to participate in this new partnership designed to increase recycling in Uptown Charlotte. Programs like Get Caught Green Handed engage consumers in a fun way and help build positive recycling habits,” said Jennifer Thompson, Harris Teeter director of communications. “We look forward to rewarding winners in the Get Caught Green Handed promotion with a $25 gift card, a free sub sandwich and 20 oz Coke product at our Uptown location at our 325 West Sixth Street location.”

Kernersville Creative Cart Distribution Project

One of the main barriers to recycling is convenience. Well, the town of Kernersville thought of an ingenious way to increase curbside recycling convenience by running a contest to give away some recycling roll-carts.

Guest Blogger - Mary McClellen

Many ideas for distributing the free carts circulated, such as an Internet survey, a photo contest and even a lottery scratch-off card. In the end, budget shortfalls required the cheapest method possible to conduct the prize drawing. That method ended up being successful, though not as high profile as organizers would have liked. The town purchased 10 cardboard contest entry boxes and decorated them colorfully. The boxes were placed at several willing local businesses and non-profit centers where there was a good amount of foot traffic. The cart winners were announced at the town’s first annual Earth Day celebration as part of the day’s festivities. About 75 entries were received.

Get cash for your cans!

Guest Blogger – Michigan Mary

Most people know that recycling is good for the environment and many households engage in this activity because of this understood notion. However, the national recycling rate currently stands at approximately 32 percent which indicates that a good chunk of the American population is not engaging in this activity regardless of the implications. Here at RE3.org we recently heard about a program that makes sense to us, it’s called Recycle Bank and it is a program that actually pays people to recycle. Pretty cool concept, right?

Any initiative is bound to be more successful when individuals are receiving a direct incentive to engage in the activity. In fact the pilot programs for Recycle Bank were so successful that the initial communities went from recycling seven percent and 35 percent respectively to a 90 percent participation rate in both communities. Since then Recycle Bank has expanded to 90 municipalities and services 210,000 households. So far Recycle Bank has been able to more than double the recycling statistics in each of these communities.

The program works by putting a bar code on the side of the receptacle and weighing the amount of recycled materials each week produced by the household. Then the families are given a corresponding amount of points which can be redeemed for gift cards at places like Starbucks and Whole Foods. Larger stores like Bed Bath and Beyond and Target have also added their names to the list of eligible reward locations.

Recycle Bank is actively attempting to recruit more municipalities; however, there are some logistical hurdles that make it difficult for all communities to adopt this progressive program. First and foremost there is inherently a significant start up cost with this type of program. The city must invest in new infrastructure to enable the program to run as it is intended. The Recycle Bank bins are larger than the average recycling container and cost upwards of $85 a pop, which multiplied by a city the size of Raleigh is a significant initial investment.

However, it is vital that cities understand the essential nature of thinking about the long-term benefits of the program rather than the short-term obstacles. Although it is necessary to incur an initial financial hit communities must take into account the vast benefits of a stable and thriving recycling program. Markets for recycled products are currently depressed. When they do pick up again communities with effective and efficient programs will be able to garner vast financial benefits from the implementation of this noted program.

Recycle Bank is mutually beneficial for the consumer, businesses and municipalities. Cities need its citizens to encourage their local governments to think “outside the box” to come up with ways to innovate and improve their services. Do your part by contacting your local government and asking them about considering this exciting and original recycling initiative.

Recycle Bank in Elkhorn/Omaha NE

Last year my home town of Omaha, Nebraska joined Recycle Bank.

Recycle Bank is a rewards program that motivates people to recycle by providing them with incentives. Omaha saw a 100 percent increase in recycling in one month.

According to the American Recycler, “Through a relationship with Elkhorn Sanitation Service and Firstar Fiber, RecycleBank will continue to rollout its program. Elkhorn Sanitation Service provides participating households with a 96-gallon recycling cart outfitted with a RFID tag that allows RecycleBank to track the total weight and participation of households’ recycling.”

Don’t let me down NE; and make sure to save me a coffee that you receive from all your coupons you’ll get from RecycleBank. Learn more about RecycleBank here.

ARTICLE: Charlotte Incentive Program with Coke

Did you see this article about Charlotte’s new incentive program? Interesting public-private partnership. Coke seems to be coming to the table with some money - $200,000 on promotion via a direct mailing and stickers for collection bins and $26,000 a year for the Harris Teeter gift card incentive. I can’t wait to see the results. I hope it works! Excerpts from the article are below.

A new twist on trash: Prizes for recyclers Plan would reward families for participating, help company get more plastic.
By Julia Oliver, joliver@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008

Put a Coca-Cola sticker on your recycling bin next year, make sure you follow city recycling rules, and you could win $50. That's the gist of a yearlong promotion the Charlotte-based Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated is hoping to start in February. It's aimed at increasing recycling, and advocates applaud the effort as a simple, fun way to encourage residents to care about the environment. The City Council approved the concept Monday and will take a final vote Jan. 12. But some council members worry about the costs to the city, estimated at $116,000 to $195,000 for overtime associated with increased curbside pickup. They also question allowing free placement of a corporate logo on city property.

“What have we really done to ferret out all the issues on this proposal?” council member Anthony Foxx asked.

One element not mentioned in the pitch to the City Council was the potential business boon to Coke. Increased recycling pickup in Charlotte would help the soft drink company collect more plastic bottles for a newly expanded, state-of-the-art recycling plant about 75 miles away in Spartanburg, S.C.

Lauren Steele, vice president of corporate affairs at the bottling company, said that's “a peripheral part of the deal. “It's certainly not the primary driver,” he said.

Already, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. has been ramping up plastic purchasing at Mecklenburg's recycling facility, said Graham Stevens, director of sustainability and growth for FCR, the company that runs the Mecklenburg center. FCR bundles the plastic in bales, which Coke and other companies buy. He said Coke has negotiated a new contract, but declined to give specifics.

“They will become one of our largest buyers of plastic,” he said. “Any promotion they do is great for the environment, but it's also good for them.”

Coca-Cola's Spartanburg plant makes new soda bottles out of old ones, which is cheaper than using “virgin” plastic resin, said Boo Hayes, chief financial officer at United Resource Recovery Corp., a co-owner of the plant.

By 2010, it is expected to be the world's biggest “bottle-to-bottle” recycling facility in the world. By January, it will be able to produce 55 million pounds of recycled plastic each year.

ARTICLE - Incentives would aid recycling

I actually vacationed in Chattanooga this summer. We stayed on the Tennessee River. I took the picture to the left.





“Financial incentives would aid recycling, study finds” - Saturday, July 12, 2008
By Tom Faure

Just after the Chattanooga Green Committee released an interim report on how the city can lower its greenhouse gas emissions, an independent study of the Chattanooga region suggested economic incentives would induce more households to recycle.

The Community Research Council, a local policy research group, conducted the survey as part of its State of Chattanooga Region Report. The group sent Mayor Ron Littlefield and the City Council a letter with its basic findings Thursday.

The study found that 30 percent of nonregular recyclers said they would recycle more if they received a $50 annual property tax rebate and that 22 percent said they would recycle more if they received discounts at local stores.