Together, We Can Help Your Wisconsin Community Meet its Recycling Goals

As communities across the country continue to seek ways to support and expand their recycling initiatives, The Recycling Partnership and our partners have stepped up to work hand-in-hand to help meet their goals of recycling more, better. Let’s work together to recycle more cans and bottles in every community in Wisconsin, including yours.

How The Partnership Is Supporting the City of Kenosha

This summer, The Recycling Partnership began working closely with the city of Kenosha to revamp its recycling program. With funding made possible in part by the American Beverage Association through its Every Bottle Back initiative, The Partnership helped bring 32,000 new curbside recycling carts to city residents and provided additional funding for education and outreach about their new curbside collection process. The nearly $523,000 grant transitioned Kenosha’s recycling program from bagged recycling to contactless cart pickup and is expected to capture nearly 2,400 new tons of recycling annually.

The city of Kenosha applied for and received a grant from The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit organization that works with city governments nationwide to transform their recycling programs. Kenosha was selected to receive grant support because of its dedication to advancing recycling in its community. The city has begun rolling out new trash and recycling carts for residents as it moves to an automated “single-stream” collection service citywide, beginning the week of August 24, 2020. An early roll-out began in mid-July in some city neighborhoods.

The new system eliminates manual labor through the use of an automated waste truck with an attached robotic arm that will pick up the carts to empty trash and recycling. Residents can fill their cart with recycling, store it away, and roll it out on their specific pickup day. If the cart does not need to be emptied, people may keep it until the next collection.

The grant from The Recycling Partnership, funded in part by the American Beverage Association, allows more Kenosha residents to recycle and has the potential to keep valuable recyclables out of landfills, reduce litter, protect waterways, and bring our neighborhoods together for cleaner, healthier streets. Curbside recycling carts and automated collection will enable safe and efficient collection, which is increasingly beneficial during a public health crisis such as COVID-19.

“The Recycling Partnership, with support from the American Beverage Association, is proud to partner with the City of Kenosha on curbside recycling carts,” said Cody Marshall, Chief Community Strategy Officer for The Recycling Partnership. “Kenosha’s transition from bagged recycling to recycling carts will expand recycling access for Kenosha residents and make it easier and more efficient for them to recycle. We look forward to working with the City to support local jobs, increase recycling, and protect the environment.”

A transition to recycling carts is safer for workers, reducing the amount of bending and lifting that is necessary. This could result in more efficient collection, a decrease in worker injury, and lower workers’ compensation costs.

Let’s Work Together, Wisconsin

Working together with all members of the value chain from manufacturers to communities to MRFs, our data-driven efforts have been proven to advance recycling in communities across the nation, significantly increasing participation and decreasing contamination by as much as 57 percent.

The Partnership’s Residential Curbside Recycling Cart Grants transforms community recycling programs throughout the United States by offering financial and technical assistance to support the implementation of cart-based curbside recycling.

Grant funding is available to support publicly sponsored curbside recycling programs for communities of any size. The applicant must be a local government, solid waste authority, or federally recognized tribe. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis, and there is no due date for proposals.

Grant funding is available through The Recycling Partnership’s Residential Curbside Recycling Cart Grant Program for recycling carts and for public education and outreach.

• To qualify for educational funding, applicants must simultaneously seek funding for new recycling carts.
• The level of funding available to support the procurement of recycling carts varies based on the implementation strategy selected by the community.
• Successful applicants will use grant funding to secure recycling carts to implement a new cart-based curbside recycling collection program, to expand access to cart-based recycling within their community, or to transition from an open bin- or bag-based curbside recycling collection system to a cart-based collection system.

Read more about the Residential Curbside Recycling Cart Grant Program.

Now, more than ever, Wisconsin residents view recycling as an essential public service. And during a time of social distancing where many non-essential employeers are working remotely and commercial recycling is near an all-time low, producers see residential recycling programs as a critical supplier of manufacturing feedstock.

APPLY FOR A GRANT

About The Recycling Partnership

The Recycling Partnership is a national nonprofit organization that leverages corporate partner funding to transform recycling for good in states, cities, and communities nationwide. As the leading organization in the country that engages the full recycling supply chain from the corporations that manufacture products and packaging to local governments charged with recycling to industry end markets, haulers, material recovery facilities, and converters, The Recycling Partnership positively impacts recycling at every step in the process. Since 2014, the nonprofit change agent diverted 230 million pounds of new recyclables from landfills, saved 465 million gallons of water, avoided more than 250,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases, and drove significant reductions in targeted contamination rates. Learn more at www.recyclingpartnership.org