Dive Brief:

• Garland, TX has become the first city in the Lone Star State to join with The Recycling Partnership (TRP), according to an announcement from the nonprofit, and provided the city with grants, technical assistance and educational resources.
• TRP helped Garland distribute new 96-gallon recycling carts to 9,900 households at no additional cost to residents. Tricia Tiedt, a communications specialist for TRP, told Waste Dive the total value of the grant is valued at around $230,000. Broken down, that's a $79,200 grant and about $150,000 worth of staff time and support. 
• The company and Garland anticipate an annual increase of 2,000 tons of recycling as a result of programmatic updates. "Garland is quite proud to be the first Texas recipient of The Recycling Partnership's grant funding," Tiana Lightfoot Svendsen, environmental outreach coordinator for Garland, told Waste Dive. "We see ourselves as trailblazers."

Dive Insight:

In addition to diversion increases, TRP estimates that the new programming in Garland will equate 4,381 tons of greenhouse gas avoidance annually. The company says it wants to expand more in Texas "in the coming years."

Working in Garland means TRP will likely be working with FCC Environmental, which won a 5-year contract for collecting and processing the city's recycling in February last year.

Garland marks TRP's fifteenth city in its nationwide campaign to increase diversion rates and improve recycling. Recent citywide efforts include a data-driven project in Atlanta, an education campaign in Chicago and a campaign focusing on aluminum cans in Denver. To date, TRP has helped distributed over 412,000 recycling carts.

On a less-granular level, TRP has been involved in bigger conversations around nationwide recycling, advocating standards for low contamination in light of China's import restrictions and working to increase demand among American manufacturers for recycled material.