1998 Trash Cutter Award Program Case Studies

City of Burbank: Best Education Program

• Program Description
• Program Summary
• Costs
• Benefits
• Contact

Program Description

Free recycling and green waste collection are just some of the services the City of Burbank promotes through its comprehensive education program. To effectively get the word out, the City staff publishes a biannual newsletter; attend frequent business and apartment workshops, and 20 citywide events a year; network with the local Chamber of Commerce; speak before engagements of local community groups; visit schools and provide lesson plans for teachers; and conduct tours of its Learning Center. Open to the public, the Learning Center serves as a clearinghouse of recycling and waste reduction information and a site of composting workshops. The city also honors businesses and individuals as "Recycling Heroes" during the April City Council meeting.

Program Summary

Recycling and green waste collection containers and educational materials/assistance are available free to the entire Burbank community. Recycling carts are available in three sizes and bins in four sizes. The city's automated refuse recycling and green waste collection program distributes recycling containers for totally commingled materials to all Burbank residents in single-family houses and multifamily residences of five units and under (26,000 residential units). Residential refuse rates are based  upon the size of the refuse cart only. Automation tripled the amount of material collected within the program's first year.

The city promotes its free recycling and green waste collection service to all Burbank addresses regardless of who their waste hauler is through twice-yearly newsletters (Burbank Recycles) mailed to all addresses; frequent business and apartment workshops; a booth at the Chamber of Commerce showcase and letters to all new chamber members; attendance at almost 20 city-wide events each year (fairs, marathons, car shows, mall happenings, summer camps; etc.); speaking engagements at local clubs; visits to schools; teacher packets with lesson plans; and center tours.  The results is at least one-third of the 17,000 larger multifamily residential units are recycling with the city, as are many businesses.

Burbank Recycles, a newsletter, published twice a year, is mailed to all Burbank addresses. Staff attends almost 20 public events annually, has written and designed brochures, utility bill inserts, phone book pages, a coloring book, "on-screen" movie ads, newspaper ads/articles, and public service announcements. Staff consists of a recycling coordinator, specialist, secretary and utility worker for a city population that has now reached 104,000.

Burbank's curbside/buyback/drop-off recycling program began in 1982. In October 1992, however, Burbank completed a user-friendly, state-of-the-art recycling center with a MRF, buyback/drop-off center, 1,000-gallon underground used oil tank, and Learning Center, increasing the number of jobs at the center by at least 20. The automated collection program was originally presented through a series of city-wide public hearings at neighborhood schools.

Open to the public, the Learning Center serves as a clearinghouse of information (including materials exchange); a lending library of videos, books, magazines; and a composting workshop and demonstration site. There are interactive exhibits that entertain an average of 1,500 visitors a year--many of them school children. The main attraction, Recyclamania, features a "Junkaranda" tree, which houses a computer, TV monitor, microscope and macroscope; a walk-in compost bin and "worm condo"; buy recycled and reduce/reuse exhibits. Bill Rey Cycle, the center's mascot who appears on the side of some automated vehicles, received his name through a city-wide contest.

Free recycling bins and collection are given to all Burbank schools, public and private. City staff speaks to classes, provides teaching curricula, holds writing and poster contests, offers teachers a recycling and composting workshop. Each year, four classrooms receive transportation to the City's recycling operations.

In 1994 the city began offering all businesses free containers and collection for commingled recyclables, either curbside/alley carts or bins, for all size businesses. The U.S. Post Office, for example, which began recycling with the city in 1995, after a brief hiatus, is again recycling 8 tons of paper a month.

Costs

Excluding staff salaries, the city spends an average of $67,000 a year for educational efforts. As an enterprise fund, the daily operation of the city's Recycle Center is paid for mainly through residential billing, a 16 percent waste hauler gross receipts fee, and a monthly fee from Smurfit Recycling Company, the city's contractor.

A $2,000 grant helped finance an elementary school pilot "WasteLess Lunch" project, which showed that 85 percent of school lunch waste can be composted or recycled.  Warner Bros. Studios Facilities has provided $5,000 for the city school district to complete an in-depth school waste analysis and waste reduction plan expansion.

Benefits

The City of Burbank's diversion rate is 53 percent. This rate has continued to improve since waste reduction programs were implemented.  Even since 1994, the city's diversion rate has risen 14 percentage points without major additions to programs. The increased diversion appears to be, at least in part, as a result of the city's public education programs.

If some success has been achieved, it may be attributed to an automated collection program with convenience for the user as a priority; a variable can rate; free recycling and green waste collection; materials recovery facility (MRF); user-friendly, one-stop-shop recycling center for everything including books, jeans, videos, CDs, toner cartridges; the Learning Center; compost demonstration site; Used Oil Center for oil, filters and antifreeze; and continuous promotion of these programs through newsletters, publications, on-screen movie and cable TV ads, city-wide and local events, workshops, school programs, tours, newspaper articles and more.

For Further Information Contact:

Burbank Recycle Center
500 South Flower Street
Burbank, CA  91502