Waste Management challenges neighborhoods to reduce trash, increase recycling, composting

by | Aug 30, 2011

Waste Management, one of two companies that contract with the City of Seattle to haul away garbage, recycling, and yard waste, is challenging neighborhoods to reduce trash and increase recycling during a six-month period. And the winner gets a chunk of cash.
Starting at the end of September and running through March, Waste Management’s Neighborhood Rewards Programs will measure garbage, recycling and yard waste, and compare it to data for the same time period last year. The neighborhood that can recycle and compost the most, and throw out the least garbage, will win a $50,000 grant for a community project.
While the contest is strictly for residential and not commercial, Kristin Kinder, outreach coordinator for Waste Management, said businesses are encouraged to promote the contest as a way for the whole neighborhood to win.
“It’s a cool combination between single-family residential and commercial entities working together and both reaping the benefits,” Kinder told last week’s Greenwood Community Council meeting.
A number of Phinney Ridge and Greenwood organizations will collaborate on helping our neighborhood decide what to do with the grant money if we win the contest, including the Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce, Phinney Neighborhood Center, Sustainable Greenwood-Phinney, Northwest District Council, Greenwood Community Council, and Phinney Ridge Community Council.
“The neighborhood that wins will be granted $50,000 for a ‘shovel ready’ plan. So they don’t want us to spend a lot of time and money figuring it out. It should be ready to go,” Phinney Neighborhood Association Administrative Assistant Marie Bolla said.
“We want to protect our resources and protect the resources of this area for our children and our friends and family and for our community,” Bolla added, “and one way to do that is to reduce waste, and recycle what we can.”
Final details of the contest are still being worked out, so stay tuned for more details, and the official start date in September.

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