This year, PROP, PWIA and SWANA recognized 40 programs in 19 counties across the state.  Awards were presentend in ten categories:

• Individual Achievement
• Special Collections
• Public Education
• Commercial/Instititional Recycling
• Recycling Achievement
• Materials Processing
• Community Event Recycling
• School  Recycling
• Reuse
• Composting 

 

2006 Waste Watchers Award Winners by county

 

Adams County

 

Gettysburg College –Reuse and Special Collections

Gettysburg College students collected items from apartments, residence halls and classrooms that would normally be thrown in dumpsters at the end of the academic year.  Items included lamps, furniture, fans, carpets and appliances.  The items were sold at the annual “Give It Up for Good” sale and money raised was given to the United Way of Adams County.  Unsold items were donated to the Adams County Rescue Mission.  This year, the event saved 23 tons from the waste stream and raised more than $16,000.  Additionally, the campus collects discarded bulky furniture which is given to non-profit community organizations. 

 

Armstrong County

 

BSA Troop 670—Special Collections

This boy scout troop has been promoting recycling both within the troop and the community for several years.  The troop recycles newspapers for the local animal shelter and aluminum cans to help off-set the costs of trips and dues.  A major undertaking for the troop is assisting in the annual Hard to Recycle Day where scouts help load up trucks and trailers with electronics and appliances for transport to a recycling facility.

 

St. Mary’s Ukrainian Church—Institutional Recycling

St. Mary’s is to be recognized for its year-round recycling efforts, especially during its pierogi sales.  These sales can be considered “no-waste.”  Containers are collected by parishioners all year to put orders in, as well as bags and boxes that ingredients were brought in.  Potato peelings, onion skins, egg cartons and shells, metal cans, glass and plastics are all composted or recycled.  Any leftover dough remains, church workers make noodles out of them. 

 

Bucks County

 

Waste Management of Pennsylvania, Bucks County Courier Time, The Intelligencer, Neshaminy Mall –Public Education

This group of dedicated recyclers put together a three-pronged educational program, including an Earth Day poster contest, a free Teacher’s Workshop and Community Earth Day.  Poster winners are featured in a calendar that includes recycling tips.  Teachers learn more about recycling and environmental education projects they can use in the classroom.  Community Earth Day is held at the Neshaminy Mall and includes interactive displays, nature centers and a Trash Art contest.  The partnership has been the recipient of several education and environmental awards since 2001.

 

 

 

Pennsbury School District, Waste Management of Pennsylvania—Public Education

This partnership is recognized for its “It Takes a Village to Grow a Park” program.  A 19,200 square foot area adjacent to the elementary school was transformed from an eyesore into an outdoor classroom for students and a healthy wildlife habitat for the community.  Students, teachers and community volunteers worked to create an environmental laboratory which will help students learn about renewable resources, wetlands and balance between humans and the environment.  The area will be used as a meeting place for community events, and senior citizens can become “grand-gardeners” to help maintain the property.

 

Cambria County

 

Cambria County Solid Waste Authority –Special Collections and Public Education

This organization is recognized for its first ever Household Hazardous Waste Collection.  With more than 300 participants, the event yielded about 16,707 pounds of material.  All materials were sorted, categorized and either recycled or properly disposed.  The Authority is also recognized for its successful book recycling event and E-cycling.  On the education front, the Authority’s presentations, quarterly newsletter, website and annual recycling summer camp all combined to create an outstanding public education program.  With the aid of the Authority, two schools started recycling programs in Cambria County in 2005.

 

Carbon County

 

Carbon County Department of Solid Waste—Special Collections

Two e-cycling events netted more than 30,000 pounds of materials.  This saved the county nearly $10,000 in disposal costs and hundreds of yards of landfill space.  From the first collection the second, there was an increase of 33% material.  Afterward, many municipalities contacted the Department to schedule events at their localities. 

 

Centre County

 

Centre County Solid Waste Authority—Recycling Achievement, Public Education, Materials Processing, Community Event Recycling, Commercial/Institutional Recycling and Special Collections

The Centre County Solid Waste Authority continues its commitment to the environment by demonstrating excellence in each undertaking.  The Authority operates its own processing facility and more than 110 drop-off locations.  It collects from more than 400 businesses, 18,000 homes, Penn State University, the Rockview State Penitentiary and several Centre County events throughout the year.  Special collections for automotive and agricultural products and electronics have set state records.  With its comprehensive educational efforts, the authority reaches more than 100,000 people through newsletters, public events and outreach.  The Authority’s Interpretive Center continues to be a hands-on laboratory for school children, college students and the general public.      

 

Pennsylvania State University—Composting

What started out as a 10-week demonstration project in one small dining commons has grown to the handling of pre-consumer food waste and napkins from nearly 70,000 weekly meals.  The material comes from dining areas, campus hotel kitchens, conference centers and a campus day-care center.  A partnership between students, staff and personnel from Housing and Food Services, Office of Physical Plant and the College of Agricultural Sciences led to the formation of the Organic Materials Processing and Education Center at the University Park campus.  Food wastes, landscape debris and animal manure are turned into compost for campus landscaping projects, athletic field maintenance and agricultural research.   

 

State College Borough—Composting

State College Borough operates a Regional Yard Waste Composting facility in Patton Township.  About 10,000 tons of grass clippings and leaves are processed from two participating townships each year.  Weekly brush collection is also offered throughout the Borough. Crews chip brush each Wednesday of every week and haul them to the composting facility. The end product is eventually offered to the public for a small fee.  In 2005, the Borough actively looked for funds to buy several new pieces of equipment to improve the site as well as lobbied to bring a third township and a grocery store on board to participate in the operation. 

 

Clinton County

 

Clinton County Solid Waste Authority—Recycling Achievement, Special Collections and Materials Processing

Building on an already solid program, the Authority was able to expand its commercial recycling program to include a weekly curbside collection in 2005.   There are 12 municipalities with curbside service and more than 20 municipal recycling drop-off sites around the county.  The program has evolved into a seven-truck operation.  In 2005, the Authority collected more than 5,000 tires and nearly 32,000 pounds of household hazardous waste during special collections events.  Several thousand tons of materials have also been processed and marketed through the authority’s Materials Recovery Facility, which has grown to include a permanent electronics collection program.

 

Columbia County

 

Town of Bloomsburg—Materials Processing

Two building additions and the continual adding of materials have built the Bloomsburg program up to where it is now.  The processing center accepts bottles, phone books, hardcover and paperback books, e-waste and, most recently, a confidential paper-shredding program.  That program added more than 63,000 pounds of office paper to the materials processing facility last year.  

 

Cumberland County

 

South Middleton Township—Composting

The township’s composting facility has operation hours throughout the year, when

residents can drop off things like brush, logs and branches, leaves and Christmas trees. The materials are processed and can then be picked up as mulch and compost.  The township’s website, recycling guide, newsletter and schedule magnet all encourage residents to take part in the program.  The amount of yard waste increased by more than 1,000 tons from 2004 to 2005. 

 

Fulton County

 

McConnellsburg Elementary School—Public Education

As part of Earth Week, McConnellsburg organized a community plastic recycling drive.  Students, parents and the community worked together to fill an entire dumpster with plastics.  As a result of the project, a petition was circulated asking area leaders to make plastic recycling a permanent feature in Fulton County. 

 

Lancaster County

 

Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority—Special Collections

With 20 municipalities that collect white goods curbside and three drop-off areas, LCSWMA recycled more than 1,500 tons of white good and light iron in 2005.  Also during the year, the Authority began using its own operations staff to process the white goods.  Four employees were trained for CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) removal.  The items are then shipped to a scrap metal shredding facility for recycling. 

 

Warwick High School—School Recycling

A recycling program has been in place here for a number of years, but because of hard and diligent work by students and teachers, the program expanded in 2005.  Mixed office paper is now collected in almost all of the classrooms as well as all recyclable materials generated in the cafeteria by students and staff.  Discussions are on-going to implement a similar program for the middle school.  

 

Lackawanna County

 

The Eagle Warranty Corporation—Institutional Recycling

This corporation is recognized for its attention to recycling and reuse in construction of a new building.  Carpeting, floor tiles and ceilings made from recycled materials were used and large windows and skylights were built to allow for natural light and solar heating.  As part of the move, the company also decided to go paperless, which substantially saves in paper purchases and hauling costs.  Company employees also compost their food waste to be used as fertilizer around the building. 

 

Cinram Manufacturing, LLC—Institutional Recycling

Cimram sits on more than one million square feet of land used for manufacturing, warehousing and office space.  It has been recycling for more than 20 years, even before Pennsylvania’s Act 101 mandate.  About 70% of non-chemical materials are recycled, including metals, woods, plastics, corrugated cardboard and office paper. In 2005, the company installed 65 spruce grinders and Lacquer recycling stations to further reduce the generation of waste material.  More than 5,000 tons of materials were recycled during this year.

 

Lehigh County

 

Teena Bailey—Individual Achievement in Recycling

Teena is recognized for her single-handed coordination of the annual “Cleansweep” event.  The multi-township program accepts and collects recycling-related items.  Teena actively engages neighbors to participate in this, as well as the county’s household hazardous waste programs.  As a master gardener, she helps plan for sustainable agriculture and composting. 

 

Whitehall Township Environmental Advisory Council—Community Event

Each year, the Advisory sponsors a recycling contest for all school children in the township.  Magazines, phone books and other recyclables that students collected throughout a five-month span were weighed on the contest day.  Prizes are awarded to winners, but more importantly, the more than 26 tons of recyclables saved about 132 cubic yards of landfill space.

 

Whitehall Township—Recycling

Since its start in 1987, the Township has grown to collect from nearly 8,000 households each week.  Collections are held for leaves and grass during specific months, and a scrap metal roll-off container is available at the recycling center.  The Township reclaimed asphalt pavement from its streets and used it to provide a base material for 3.5 miles of a rail trail and supplied Lehigh County with several hundred tons for development of its recycling site. 

 

Whitehall Township/Waste Management—Special Collections

Whitehall Township is proud of its partnership with Waste Management to provide a special curbside collection for appliances, large metal items and Freon-containing items once a month.  Residents can place the items, including tires, out on the last Wednesday of the month.  Officials say illegal dumping of these items has greatly diminished in the township because of this added service. 

 

Erie County

 

Platea Borough, Elk Creek Township, Girard Township, Cranesville Borough, Girard Borough—Special Collections

The Joint Municipal Recycling/Clean Up Day is held every year in September for participating communities to gather unwanted, recyclable materials.  Several thousand pounds of scrap metals, household items, used motor oil and anti-freeze, tires and Freon units were collected and sent to various local and non-local agencies for proper disposal or recycling.  Each participating municipality and township donates equipment and time to pull off a successful event. 

 

Erie County Waste Management—Special Collections

As part of the International Coastal Clean-up, a steering committee was formed in Erie County to clear litter from the Erie County Waterways in 2003.  Since the program began, 500 volunteers collected 50,000 pounds of trash along 30 miles of shoreline, stream banks and watersheds.  During the most recent cleanup, more than 50,000 cigarette butts, beverage containers and food wrappers were collected and prevented from eventually winding up in Lake Erie.  Each item was counted, logged and either recycled or sent to the landfill for proper disposal. 

 

Montgomery County

 

Upper Merion Township—Recycling

Recycling enforcement and on-going education have helped to triple the Township’s tonnage since its inception in 1990.  The Township recently added another recycling opportunity for residents; they can now drop off any paper, other than phone books and cardboard, at collection bins at elementary schools and the Township building.  The Township also makes use of its transit service, The Rambler, which helps relieve the environment of excess automobile pollution.

 

Philadelphia County

 

Temple University—Public Education and School Recycling

Temple University undertook an effort to evaluate and restructure the recycling program in one of its major centers, used by students, staff, faculty and visitors.  Several months of work and educational efforts turned visually stimulating signage and co-collection of recyclables into a near 100% capture rate for used beverage containers, including glass, plastic and aluminum from the building.  In all other buildings and classrooms, collection containers are provided for beverage containers and paper.  The university also gives all of its post-consumer food waste from the cafeteria to a local pig farmer.  This resulted in 200 tons of food diverted from the waste stream and a collection and disposal cost avoidance of nearly $10,000.    

 

Schuylkill County

 

Ray Stump; Area Citizens for Economic Success—Individual Recycling

Stump and the ACES partnered with AAA Environment Inc. in an effort to recycle inkjet cartridges, cell phones and boxes for toner cartridges.  Dispensers have been strategically placed in high-traffic areas throughout the community.  Residents only have to slip the used items into pre-addressed, postage-paid mailers.  AAA Environmental processes, recycles and credits ACES, which gets the money and, in turn, uses it to provide for families and individuals in need. 

 

Union County

 

United States Penitentiary Lewisburg—Institutional Recycling

The Penitentiary first put a recycling program in place in 2001.  Recyclable materials are sorted from the waste stream by inmates in the facility’s own recycling center.  Tabs from aluminum cans are donated to a local chapter of the Ronald McDonald House.  A small worm-composting program has also been established.  New staff and inmates are given a basic introduction to recycling at the facility and staff is invited to attend backyard composting sessions several times a year.  The institution uses recycled office paper and toiletries, along with recycled ink cartridges and toner.

 

Westmoreland County

 

Westmoreland Cleanways—Community Event Recycling and Special Collections

After nine years of hosting a household hazardous waste collection event, Westmoreland Cleanways reached an all-time high of 76,500 pounds of material for the year 2005.  The one-day collection had municipalities and businesses working together to provide a place for the event and the means necessary to collect and recycle the materials.  Cleanways also sponsors ten special collections throughout the year to help avoid illegal dumping of tires, lead acid batteries, appliances and other metal products.  The combined efforts netted hundreds of thousands of materials that were properly recycled or disposed of.  Coordinators say because of these collections, they have noticed a decline in the number of materials found at illegal dumpsites.