08/19/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 08/19/2022 15:52
(WASHINGTON, DC) - The Department of Public Works (DPW) was honored as a 2022 Program of the Year Winner for its successful recycling contamination reduction campaign byResource Recycling Magazine during its annual conference in Austin, Texas on August 5.
Washington, D.C. won in the Large City category, which honors a city of 150,000 or more residents, for the campaign conducted by DPW in collaboration with The Recycling Partnership. Thanks to the campaign, in November 2021, DPW announced that recycling contamination levels in the District dropped by two-thirds-to 11 percent, down from 33 percent in 2017. This means the agency made significant strides in changing recycling awareness and behavior for District residents.
"Under Mayor Bowser's leadership, our goal is to make the District is the healthiest, greenest, most livable city for all residents; and that includes finding ways to reduce waste," said Interim DPW Director Michael Carter. "Overall, we want to divert 80 percent of the city's waste away from landfills and incineration by 2032 and having a robust recycling program is an important part of that goal."
The 2021 campaign was built on outreach conducted since 2017.
"We were starting to see contamination and the costs start to build, and we really wanted to go after [that contamination]," DPW Office of Waste Diversion Manager Blake Adams said in a Resource Recycling webinar announcing the award.
DPW's 2021 campaign happened in two phases:
Currently, the agency is developing a comprehensive Zero Waste DC Plan and is holding a series of community engagement forums to get input from residents, businesses, and stakeholders.