The Environmental Health & Sustainability Department is seeking funding to enhance the Recycling Contamination Reduction Education Campaign and respectfully requests authorization from the city council to file a grant application with the North Central Texas Council of Governments for regional funds in an amount not to exceed $198,395.
The City strives to make efforts to improve recycling education outreach in order to reduce contamination. Plano conducted outreach earlier this year using three education methods in separate pilot studies – new cart lids, educational stickers, and peek and check notices. The study resulted in an overall contamination decrease of 9.39% in the chosen zip code. This new study, should it be funded, will combine all three pilot efforts into one campaign. The goal is to reach similar or higher reduction rates, thereby decreasing overall recycling contamination. Along with this, materials will be expanded to include other languages spoken in Plano (top three) and will be made available on the website and through a QR code. The benefit to contamination decrease will be an increase in recycling revenue, resulting in the lack of need to consider futures increases in utility rates for residents.
The project will include 7,500 single family homes. Each home will receive a trilingual door hanger (describing the project and providing proper recycling education) and new education stickers, delivered by a hired consultant. 1,000 homes will also receive new recycling carts with bright green lids to help clearly distinguish between the trash and recycling cart. The consultant will be responsible for three audits on all carts. They will then compile the data into a report and provide it to Plano to use for continued education efforts.
Additionally, we are requesting funding for new truck panels on the sides of 30 trash/recycling trucks which will serve as moving education tools, visible to homes on a weekly basis and providing consistent reminders of proper recycling behaviors.