June 1, 2006 - Mayor Bill White joins Solid Waste Management Director Buck Buchanan, and one of the largest recycling companies in the country today to announce plans to re-energize the effort to recycle in Houston. The announcement coincides with the 2006 Environmental Summit, "Making Houston a Modern Environmental City," taking place at the Marriott Westchase, in West Houston.
"Managing solid waste is one of the most important services local government provides," said Mayor White. "Working with citizens to manage reusable materials is one great way we can serve citizens better," said Mayor White.
The City of Houston has 162,000 homes in its curbside recycling program. To increase the yield of recycled material coming from these homes, the city is implementing a three-pronged approach.
An aggressive communications blitz including newspaper inserts, water bill inserts, recycling guides, door hangers and phone calls, visits to schools civic clubs, park programs, libraries and day camps by city staff will educate residents and encourage community participation.
The city will improve efforts to quantify the amount of recycling materials collected from Houston neighborhoods.
The city plans to increase collections by rewarding those neighborhoods with the highest participation and those with the most improved participation. Prizes of $5,000 will go to neighborhood projects for those communities that perform best and show the most improvement.
The city will reallocate crews and equipment if neighborhood participation is low.
The Curbside Recycling Program is provided bi-weekly to many Houston neighborhoods. Materials collected include aluminum and tin cans, #1 and #2 plastic containers, corrugated cardboard, mail, envelopes home and office paper, telephone books, newspapers, magazines and used motor oil.
The City also provides recycling opportunities to all Houstonians through recycling drop-off sites throughout Houston. The most popular recycling drop-off site is the Westpark Consumer Recycling Center, 5900 Westpark, which accepts batteries, used oil, paint, anti-freeze, computer parts, radios and other small electronic appliances. For more information and locations, please contact 311 or log onto the Solid Waste Management Department's website at www.houstonsolidwaste.org.
A new five-year contract with the City of Houston Solid Waste Management Department and Abitibi-Consolidated, Inc. to process commingled recycled materials complements an existing 20-year partnership. Now both newspaper and commingled recyclables can be delivered to the same sorting facility. This one-stop operation will help reduce transportation costs, time, maintenance and air emissions.
Abitibi-Consolidated is the largest recycler of newspapers and magazines in North America, diverting annually approximately 1.9 million tons of waste paper from landfills. The company is a global leader in newsprint and commercial printing papers as well as major producer of wood products, serving clients in some 70 countries from its 45 operating facilities. For Abitibi-Consolidated recycling drop-off sites, log onto www.PaperRetriever.com.