Salem Recycling Committee
Meeting of Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Attendees: Katie Giddings, Marcia Lambert, Lynn Murray, Penny Neal, Jennifer Percy, Julie Rose, Jason Silva, Susan Yochelson. Invited Guests: Robbie George, Mark George, Jim Lacy.
New Recycling Guidelines
The discussion began with the reaction to the weekly recycling pick-up. Overall, the response is positive but it is clear that there needs to be work done on both the education and motivation front. According to Robbie George, the schools are in great shape vis a vis recycling as they began their efforts quite some time ago. His company will continue to work with the schools to promote the effort. The schools have requested more recycling bins and have indicated that they do not have the funds for them.
George stated that the real problem was with the residents. After the first couple of weeks the rate of participation dropped and there are some areas of the city with notable low participation. It is clear that the message needs to go out through different forms of media and needs to be consistently repeated. One idea was to have the Salem Gazette run a column on recycling tips. (Who will write the copy and submit it?) This information could also be added to the recycling web site.
It was decided that we need to have a brainstorming session in October on how to best utilize the web site to educated people about the changes to Salem’s recycling program, to encourage other types of recycling, and to provide information resources about recycling.
After the first quarter we will have figures to compare against our baseline. These figures could be used for promotional purposes and to foster some competition among the different neighborhoods.
Green Run Proposal
Jim Lacy presented a proposal for a “Green Run” based on his experience of going out running and picking up trash in the process. This race would involve teams of runners armed with trash bags whose goal would be to collect the most trash and recyclables from the race route, separate trash from recycling, and dash to the finish. He said that it would take about six months to put together. The Committee as a whole was very receptive to his idea as it is a good way to promote recycling and get positive publicity. (Do we need to assign an action item on this?) I will send the proposal out under separate cover once I receive an electronic copy.
Recycling Logo and Tag Line
Katie Giddings has developed a great logo for recycling. We thought that it need a tag line to go with it. As a result, a meeting was scheduled for the following Tuesday. This meeting was attended by Katie, Jennifer, Penny, Susan, and myself. We spent an hour and a half brainstorming during which we developed about two dozen tag lines. These were whittled down to seven and then voted on. And the winner is –
Teaching Old Trash New Tricks
We had a lot of fun doing this and have saved the also-rans to use in our promotional material.
The next meeting will be held on: Tuesday, October 7th at 7:00 pm.
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