Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Denton wins North Texas Corporate Recycling Association Green3 Awards

By Pegasus News wire

Sara Henslee - Secretary of Planning and Construction; Gene Holloway - Director of Transportation; Rod Reeves - Facility Coordinator; Kelly Hilburn - Supervisor of Housekeeping

DENTON — The North Texas Corporate Recycling Association (NTCRA) has awarded The City of Denton's Home Chemical Collection Program, the Denton ISD, and the Industrial Street businesses cooperative recycling program first place awards in their Green3 Awards Program. The Awards Luncheon was held on September 19 at Dallas City Hall.

The Green3 awards are given each year to North Texas Governments and Businesses to recognize their efforts to increase recycling. The City of Denton received the award in the Government category for its Home Chemical Collection Program. The innovative program features curbside collection of paints, cleaners, yard chemicals, and other household products that can be dangerous when disposed of in the trash. The ReUse Store offers many of the products collected through the program when they are in their original containers, still available commercially, and at least half full to Denton residents for free. This saves the city money in disposal fees, and saves resident’s money when they can find items they can use. Since the program began full-scale collection in November 2006, there have been approximately 4000 residential curbside/apartment collections resulting in over 20,000 items collected, and close to 1000 items taken back through the ReUse store.

Fran Witte - NTCRA President; Victoria Hodge - City of Denton - Home Chemical Collection Coordinator; Ron Geri - General Manager - Greenstar Recycling; John Barlow - City of Dallas - Recycling Manager

In the “Sustainability” category, the Denton ISD also took first place. The Denton ISD partners with the city’s Recycling Division to offer a full-scale recycling program in each school that includes all of the material types accepted in the residential curbside recycling program. The recycling program has been implemented in every school in the district, as well as the administration buildings. Over 380 tons of recyclables were diverted from the landfill through this program at the end of the 2006-2007 school year. The Denton ISD also has many other green initiatives in place. The district has assembled a “Green Building Committee” consisting of district leaders, administration, private industry and city representatives to direct and manage its sustainability initiatives, which include LEED based building plans and native/low water landscaping plans for new schools, as well as retrofits at existing schools. The Denton I.S.D. Transportation Department has also been a model for long term durability and resource conservation for more than a decade. The district has the 4th largest propane bus fleet in the state of Texas and has won national acclaim for “outstanding leadership in promoting alternative fuels,” with 77 propane and 36 Bio Diesel buses in the fleet in 2007. The department has also instituted a “No Idling” policy to reduce emissions and conserve fuel.

Five businesses along the popular Industrial Street strip won first place in the “Businesses Less than 100 Employees” category. Fuzzy’s Tacos, Roosters Roadhouse, Seniors in Motion, Little Guys Movers, and Dan’s Silverleaf all worked with the city’s Recycling Division to reduce the amount of trash dumpsters on their block, and implement recycling for all of the businesses. They have cardboard, paper, glass, aluminum, steel and plastic recycling. These businesses displayed a great spirit of cooperation to solve the problem of too many dumpsters, and to implement a recycling program that met each of their various needs.

Morgan Clearman - Fuzzy's employee; Chris Hawley - Partner - Little Guys; Marcus Watson - Partner - Dan's Silver Leaf; Nancy Herod - City of Denton Recycling Commercial Account Coordinator

The NTCRA is a non-profit organization that has promoted recycling and the use of recycled goods to area businesses through leadership, advocacy, and education for over 20 years. They provide members of the business community with forums in which to learn more about environmental awareness, as well as exchange of information, coordination of special programs and events, and mentoring. The Green3 awards, formerly the Environmental Vision Awards, were given a new name this year; the “3” stands for the famous three R’s- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

For more information, contact Shirlene Sitton at 940-349-8054 or at shirlene.sitton@cityofdenton.com.

Source: city of Denton

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