Visit City Site
I want to thank RecycleBank for their assistance in making Wilmington one of the leading cities in the country in terms of measurable results from recycling.Mayor James Baker, Wilmington, DE
Wilmington, Delaware has gone green. They stared down the daunting dilemma of dwindling landfill space and made a decision to enact real change and enforce recycling in their voluntary state. The catch, though, was they were not looking to fine anyone. “We’re not interested in penalties. We’re interested in making it work and getting people involved,” says Kash Srinivasan, public works commissioner. Previous efforts were voluntary and compliance was poor.
Al Ballard, city operations director, had caught wind of an innovative recycling program that started in Philadelphia and brought it to the attention of the Mayor. By June 2006, Wilmington had rolled out a six month test pilot to approximately 6,000 households in six different geographic regions.
By the pilot's end, it was obvious that Wilmington citizens were ready and willing to recycle, producing more than two million pounds of recycling that would normally be sent to the landfill. As a city that was spending about $5 million annually for trash disposal, a city-wide rollout was the next logical step for Wilmington.
Mayor James Baker, with the support of Public Works and the city’s Clean Wilmington Committee, made the leadership decision to bring RecycleBank to all the 17,700 households in Wilmington, leading the state in a new era of trash disposal that is both environmentally and fiscally responsible.
“There are enormous environmental and financial benefits to the city since we embraced this program – and embraced the concept of less trash being taken to the landfill,” said Mayor James Baker. “RecycleBank offers recycling incentives to the government, to citizens and to the local business community. It’s nice to work with a company that does what it says and does it well.”
Seeing the multitudes of maroon-colored recycling carts wheeled curbside in Wilmington makes one think that perhaps every day can be Earth Day.
