The results are in for the Waste Management Think Green
Recycling Challenge. The last two months of the contest had neighborhoods shifting around in the rankings, including the Friday North route (Wallingford) which slipped to second place as of the end of February.
As you can see by the final results, the competition was intense.
With an increase in diversion of 0.92%, Friday South – Rainier Beach – will receive $50,000 for a community improvement project of their choice. Friday North came in fourth.
According to Waste Management Education and Outreach Coordinator Kristin Kinder, “Rainier Beach Community Club, our community partner representing Friday South, really embraced this competition and has succeeded with much effort and enthusiasm. They engaged many of the members in their richly diverse community. Their spirit and creative approach even resulted in a Saturday morning recycling flashmob. We are excited to recognize them for their relentless efforts!”
Overall, the Seattle neighborhoods involved in the Recycling Challenge increased their diversion rate by .4% compared to a year ago, primarily due to decreased garbage and increased food/yard waste collection. Together those neighborhoods composted 880 more tons of waste during the past six months than the same months in 2010-11.
Wallingford was actually one of the top two routes for overall waste diversion for the six months of the contest. However, the Recycling Challenge was structured to reward the neighborhood that increased its waste diversion the most as compared to last year.
Congratulations go out to Rainier Beach and the Rainier Beach Community Club on a green job well done. And thanks to all of you in Friday North for making the extra effort to keep our recycling numbers high every month of every year. Keep it up!
I’m a fan of challenges where everyone is a winner to some extent. Black and white paradigms guarantee disappointment.
I was a little surprised by the numbers in this competition. Assuming people actually participated by doing something different than normal, a difference of less than 1% is a pretty poor showing for the best neighborhood. Wallingford’s 0.62% is pretty crummy frankly. It left me wondering what is a diversion rate anyway. Here’s the definition: What is a diversion rate? The diversion rate is a measure of the recyclables and compostables that are kept out of the landfill. I’d like to know how this is actually measured. Many garbage bags are black plastic and strictly open at your own risk. If Waste Management sifts the garbage, which I guess they must, they must have a pretty good idea of which items are most often thrown out as trash that should be recycled. Would be good to get that information as an outcome of this competition. As someone who has a huge recycle bin and a tiny seldom used garbage bin, I’d say the competition might not be winnable with my contribution – most of my trash is recycling not garbage already. Changing by even 1% personally would mean I increased my consumption of packaged products. Woe to the ‘hood since I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who doesn’t like that too much in this part of town. Maybe a new competition for most % difference in weight of recycling vs. weight of garbage per neighborhood would offer WallyHood the chance to shine. Still, I think the competition didn’t seem to matter too much to any of the neighborhoods…
For details on how the diversion rates are calculated, see this earlier Wallyhood post: http://www.wallyhood.org/2012/01/wallingford-leads-recycling-challenge/