SWANA 2011 Public Education Excellence Award Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Waukesha County, Wisconsin s unique Reduce Your Waste Stream Challenge:

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1 SWANA 2011 Public Education Excellence Award Waukesha County, Wisconsin Executive Summary Waukesha County, Wisconsin s unique Reduce Your Waste Stream Challenge: 1. Created awareness of waste reduction via the competition 2. Challenged participants to adopt new behaviors 3. Shared results and best practices online 4. Produced a toolkit, blog and website for use by others 5. Tracked results and quantified their impact Thirty-three households weighed their trash and recyclables for four weeks and blogged about their experiences. Families with greatest reduction in garbage and greatest increase in recycling received prizes donated by businesses. Local newspaper and television coverage in the greater Milwaukee-Waukesha area provided potential exposure to more than half million people. Results: The average household reduced garbage by 12.6 pounds (49%) and increased recycling by 10 pounds (66%) per week. With 88,000 households in the County program, if only one quarter matched those results, communities would benefit by: Diverting over 7,200 tons of garbage from landfills annually at $40/ton disposal fee, saving more than $288,000 Collecting over 5,800 tons of additional recyclables annually assuming $100/ton revenue, generating more than $580,000 Total positive economic impact, nearly $870,000/year. Other communities, schools, and organizations can use the toolkit and website to develop their own Challenge.

2 2011 Public Education Excellence Award Waukesha County, Wisconsin Statement of Intent Waukesha County Recycling & Solid Waste Office ran a unique public education campaign in Fall 2010, called Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge. Designed as a friendly competition between households to see who could reduce their waste (trash) and increase their recycling the most by changing their behavior. The Challenge captured people s attention with lots of publicity and prizes for the winners, and provided an opportunity to share best practices for reducing waste and increasing recycling. Additionally, two new recycling programs were launched around the time the Challenge was initiated: carton recycling and electronics recycling. The County hoped to piggy back the goals of the proposed Challenge with education about these new initiatives. Research/Planning Waukesha County processes more than 21,000 tons of recyclables at its Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) annually from over 88,000 households. These materials are collected via curbside collection plus 13 municipal drop off sites. The County s Recycling & Solid Waste staff provide on-going recycling and waste reduction education. Despite these efforts, during the past five years, residential recycling tonnage has flattened.

3 The County public education program makes use of all the traditional outreach including press releases and print ads, displays at events, tax inserts, website promotion, open houses and tours at the recycling facility, presentations to schools and civic organizations as well as social media. In 2009, the state legislature increased landfill fees for trash disposal to nearly $13 per ton. The County and its 25 recycling municipal partners were looking for ways to improve recycling tonnage and reduce landfill disposal costs. Upon reading an article describing how six households in Renton, Washington, participated in a waste reduction competition in 2008, County staff felt that a similar program could help them achieve many of the County s waste reduction objectives. With assistance from a public relations firm, the Challenge was developed. The target audience of the Challenge campaign was families, who formed teams. By involving all family members to work together in a competition, the individuals helped each other as well as monitored what was being placed in the trash and recycling bins. Team leaders provided encouragement and shared tips, and reported weekly weights for their team. The requirement to weigh their trash and recyclables each week gave participants immediate feedback on how they were doing. A visit to the designated website provided a chart showing team weights so they could compare their progress. The main goals of the project were: 1. Create awareness of waste reduction efforts that, in conjunction with recycling, can reduce overall trash output. 2. Get widespread, positive publicity about the challenge, the participants progress and the outcomes. 3. Initiate online dialogs by providing the participants a website where they can blog about their progress (trials and tribulations) during the challenge and where the public can follow and comment about their effort. 4. Expand existing promotion and education programs by challenging residents to look beyond recycling for ways to reduce waste (and save money). 5. Develop measurement tools to track the impact of the project, i.e., visits to the county website, reduced waste/increased recycling. One task developed to help meet these goals was to bring waste reduction to the forefront in conjunction with recycling. Many people know about waste reduction but think it is the same as recycling. Helping the participants to discover basic, easy ways to reduce waste that fit into their lifestyle and their family schedules was important. Also, providing free compost bins for households that didn t have them proved to be a major factor in the participants success.

4 Press releases were sent out periodically during the Challenge with progress updates. These were intended to draw attention to the Challenge and the website so residents could follow along with the participants. In order to assure news coverage, staff sent individual s and made phone calls to follow up on press releases. One anticipated obstacle was the County website could not be used for blogging. The County partnered with the Associated Recyclers of Wisconsin (AROW), the state s recycling organization to develop a designated website for the Challenge where participants could blog and the public could follow their progress. Another benefit of this arrangement is that other communities can now use the site through AROW. Another obstacle was the short timeline to recruit participants in order to complete the Challenge before the busy holiday season. Implementation/Execution Braun & Zurawski (B&Z), a marketing communications firm with a niche in green marketing, responded to the County Request for Proposals with a plan to expand the original six-family challenge by adding more households and participants: the team concept. B&Z developed a creative graphic to help provide continuity throughout the program. The graphic reflected the name of the Challenge as well as the cumulative effect of each household s trash as part of the waste stream. The graphic built awareness and recognition for the Challenge as a fun, new approach.

5 Team leaders were recruited to solicit households, provide encouragement and report weekly weights. The County used blasts, print ads, online ads, flyers, press releases and personal contacts to recruit team leaders in the 25 recycling partner communities. Once team leaders were selected, specific information was distributed to the participating families: Official Rules and Sign-up Sheet which included an Honor Code pledge, a list of Frequently Asked Questions, and Invitation to the Kickoff Event. The annual recycling newsletter, sent to all households in the County s recycling program, also provided information about the Challenge and a link to the website. Further awareness was created through onscreen advertising and wall posters in the lobbies and hallways at local Marcus Theaters. Finally, commuters in the area were apprised of the program through signage at bus stops throughout the City of Waukesha. On Thursday, October 7, 2010, Waukesha County hosted a Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge launch event at the Majestic Theater in Brookfield. Team leaders and participant families gathered for a pizza supper to meet-and-greet their team members and other competitors in the Challenge. They received instructions for participation, extra recycling bins, and helpful hints that would allow them to reduce the amount of waste they threw in their garbage cans. At this event, staff reviewed items accepted for recycling; discussed use of the County website as a resource for disposing of items for reuse; showed the new website for blogging, and demonstrated the protocol for weighing trash and recyclables. In all, eight teams comprising 33 families and 125 participants competed in the Waukesha County Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge between October 11 and November 12, The first week of the Challenge set a baseline, measuring the weight of waste and recyclable materials from each of the participating households. The following four weeks were used to track household progress as the reduction portion of the Challenge. Participants weighed their trash and their recycling each week and the team leader submitted the data to the County. To monitor the process and to help keep the families critical data accurate and reliable, a representative from the County and a waste stream expert conducted one spot check per household during the course of the Challenge. On Saturday, November 13th, Waukesha County hosted a Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge awards presentation with County Executive Dan Vrakas. The event coincided with the annual America Recycles Day Open House at the County s Materials Recycling Facility.

6 After reviewing the final results of the Challenge with the assembled crowd, Mr. Vrakas presented certificates to all participating households and awarded prizes to the winning households. Key measurement tools for the campaign included tracking the number of visits to the designated website; collecting participants weekly trash and recycling weights, comparing them to the baseline weights that were taken just prior to the launch of the Challenge, and posting the percentage of increase or decrease online in a timely fashion. The competition to see which family could reduce waste and increase recycling the most motivated families with school age children to participate. We recruited several families through a local Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) charter school. Task / Timeline

7 Budget Cost Description Business Donations $24,320 Marketing consultant $9,149 Promotion- print & online $10,000 Carton Council ads, bus billboards, Marcus theater, events $2,108 Compost bins $300 Johns Disposal $500 $250 Veolia Environmental Services Materials Processing Corp (MPC) Prizes & events: Kickoff event- room rental In-kind Marcus Theater Laptop & desktop computers In-kind MPC $5,000 Create & update unique website $40,577 Total Cost $11,050 Total Donations About 23% of the total project cost was covered by business sponsorships. Business support was important in covering the cost of prizes and events, which helped generate media and participant interest in the Challenge. Initially, we proposed giving compost bins only to the Team Leaders as prizes; however, in planning the Challenge, we realized that it would greatly improve the reduction of trash if each participating household had a bin at the beginning of the campaign. The bins are sold at $68 each as a fund-raiser by the Friends of Retzer Nature Center, a non-profit organization. *The Carton Council is a national trade association whose members are manufacturers of various food and beverage cartons. The organization has been instrumental in setting up recycling of cartons and they agreed to help fund this project as a way to inform and educate residents about the new opportunity to recycle cartons in our county program.

8 Results/Evaluation The Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge successfully achieved the five identified program objectives. 1. The Challenge was able to get 33 households (and hundreds of other residents via the website) to understand what could and what couldn t be recycled. In just four weeks, the Challenge eliminated 1,660 pounds of garbage from the County s waste stream and generated 1,320 pounds of recyclable material. 2. The Challenge generated more than half a million potential impressions from ads, web visits and story placements. 3. The website and blog posts provided a place where participants could share their experiences and tips and the general public could follow the Challenge s results. 4. Participants reduced their weekly trash by 49% on average and increased recycling 66%. 5. The program was able to track and measure results of both the waste reduction and the public exposure to the Challenge. Armed with the tools to reduce their waste stream (composting bins, a list of simple solutions, a blog to share best practices, etc.), the participating households were able to eliminate on average 12.6 pounds of garbage from their weekly trash. The average weekly recycling increase by participating households was 10.2 pounds per week. An estimated 1,660 pounds of garbage were eliminated. Nearly 1,320 pounds of additional recyclable material was generated. Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge Scoreboard While these numbers from the Challenge s 33 participating households may seem modest on their own, the true impact can be seen when they are projected to represent the entire County.

9 If only one quarter of the 88,000 households in the 25 participating communities yielded the same results as the average Challenge household, the communities would see the following financial benefits. More than 7,200 tons of garbage would be diverted away from landfills annually. Assuming landfill disposal fees of $40 per ton, this would save the communities more than $288,000 in fees each year. More than 5,800 tons of additional recyclable material would be collected each year. Assuming $100 of revenue per ton of material, this would generate more than $580,000 worth of annual revenue from additional recyclables. That s nearly $870,000 of combined annual savings and revenue as a result of small changes that households can easily incorporate. Determining Winners Spreadsheet calculations Percent increase/decrease against baseline weights Category Household Percent Decrease/Increase Waste Reduction Winner Baas Family -89.8% Waste Reduction 2 nd place Beyerlein Family -87.5% Recycling Increase Lippe Family % Team Waste Reduction STeAM Team -71.0% From the blog and the survey, it was discovered that households scrutinized their waste for recycling and composting opportunities more than they did prior to the Challenge. Participants also consciously avoided buying products that would add to their waste stream and, ultimately, to the landfill. For many, this Challenge kick-started composting efforts. Fifty-six percent of survey respondents said the biggest change they made was to start composting. The blog also showed

10 the Challenge heightened their awareness of more items that could be recycled and caused them to divert more material from their garbage can to their recycling bin. Some households placed bins in various areas of their homes, such as the kitchen and bathrooms for items that could be recycled or composted. This made it much easier for participants to save the items and not just throw them in the garbage. Our recycling bin is kept in the garage downstairs, so it s a pain to have to run down there numerous times a day, said the Stefanski household. We found a box to fit under our kitchen sink that we can throw our recyclables in and just take it down when it gets full (my son s job.) Now we don't think twice about putting recyclables in the box, no matter how big or small. The Zimmerman household found *Paper+ items that we were throwing away in our garbage can are now being put in a separate paper bag next to our garbage can in the kitchen. These items include school papers, cereal boxes, Kleenex boxes, pasta boxes, etc. I used to just tear them up and throw them in the trash! Another strategy that was used almost across the board was to avoid purchasing items that create unnecessary garbage. This included using real plates when entertaining, reconsidering or reevaluating a purchase at the grocery store based on packaging, or using rags instead of disposable paper towels. AROW, the host of the website, set up a Google Analytics link to monitor use of the website. The following information on visitors and traffic to the site was gathered. Visitors Overall there was good traffic to the website There were 325 unique visitors. 1,313 visits were recorded from October 7th through November 26th. That averages to visitors per day. Visitors averaged 1.40 minutes and 1.49 pages viewed per visit. 75 percent of the visitors were returning visitors that followed throughout the Challenge. Visitors came from countries all around the world including Canada, Hong Kong and Russia. Obviously, the United States had the greatest number of visitors. 23 different states from coast to coast visited the site. 1,241 visitors came from Wisconsin. Wisconsin visitors came from 42 different cities around the state, with the majority living in the southeast region. The cities of Waukesha, Milwaukee and Elm Grove were the top 3 for visitors. Other Wisconsin visitors came from as far north as Marathon and Eau Claire and as far west as La Crosse and Platteville.

11 Post-Competition Survey Upon completion of the Challenge, a survey went out to all participants to gather feedback on the competition and interest in future programs. Here are the key findings of the survey that was completed by 58 percent of all participants: How did participants became aware of the program? The survey showed that 44 percent of participants who responded to the survey heard about the Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge through s from either the County or their children s schools. 22 percent heard about it from a friend or neighbor. 17 percent learned about the Challenge from either the Freeman or Journal Sentinel. Another 17 percent heard about it through other sources. What motivated families to participate? 88 percent of the participants who responded signed up for the Challenge because waste reduction is a cause they believe in and they wanted to get more involved with the community. 12 percent responded that they participated because of the prizes. Was the length of the Challenge appropriate? 83 percent of respondents felt the length of the Challenge seemed to be just right. 17 percent felt it was too short. How effective was the communication? The majority of respondents felt the rules and weighing procedures were clear and easily understood and the communication from the County throughout the Challenge was effective. Respondents did note that communication could have been improved specifically for the blog. Many participants would have liked to see more interaction on the blog from the County as they were looking to the County to be a mentor through this experience.

12 Things We Would Do Differently More time for recruiting Target families through schools More education for participants Better instructions on weigh-in Longer baseline phase (2 weeks?) Possibly utilize one media partner More time between sign-ups and beginning of project Reverse the venue of the ceremonies This project can be replicated in other communities. We have created a tool kit which has been posted on the website of the state s recycling association, in hopes that others would try it. Please visit If a municipality or organization were to coordinate a similar Challenge, the following recommendations may help their programs run more efficiently. Allocating as much time as is possible (three months minimum) for the development of the program would provide sufficient time to properly coordinate all the elements of a challenge program, some of which are listed below. Recruit team leaders and organizations to help promote the Challenge. Distribute the rules and procedures as early in the recruitment process as possible in order for team leaders to fully understand the program and for households to make an informed and timely decision regarding participation. Utilize local recycling businesses, including haulers, to help fund the program. Explore sponsorships and grant funding to cover administrative costs associated with coordinating a statewide challenge including set-up, communication, promotion and advertising, website hosting fees, and prizes. Local businesses can sponsor households or teams to create a sense of community involvement and interest in sustainability initiatives. Partner with a single media outlet early in the process to increase publicity and coverage of the challenge. A coordinated effort with the media partner could produce a continuously updated news story, following the challenge from kickoff to finish.

13 Explaining recycling information more clearly or having it more accessible would be another recommendation. The majority of participants were already engaged in some recycling practices. However, even though recycling guidelines were available on the County s website and referred to on the Challenge website, and at the kickoff event, many households were still unclear as to which plastics could be recycled. There is currently a national effort to change plastic codes so they are less confusing for the public. Waukesha County s Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge proved to be a success. As the Poser household stated, even though it's over, we are still working hard at trying to keep our [trash] numbers low and recycle big. There is always a daily trip out to the compost bin with scraps and peels. It was only 5 weeks, but it has instilled a change for a lifetime. # # #