Dive Brief:
- The Recycling Partnership has awarded Santa Fe, NM with a grant for new residential recycling carts, which should be distributed late this fall. The city will also receive help with a public education campaign and with technical planning to support the cart deliveries to its 29,000 households.
- Santa Fe is the seventh city to receive a similar type of cart grant, along with Richmond, VA and Columbia, SC. It is the last city to receive a grant from The Recycling Partnership's 2015 grant round, however proposals for the 2016 grant round opened earlier this month.
- Overall, The Recycling Partnership assists 72 communities, reaching a total of 1.2 million households.
Dive Insight:
The city of Santa Fe has been progressively working to increase its recycling operations. Last summer, the city expanded its curbside recycling program to include phone books, cereal boxes, egg cartons, and other materials. In December, Santa Fe proposed increased residential curbside and commercial recycling fees to help fund a single-stream recycling program with automated pickup, which is slated to launch later this year.
The addition of new residential recycling carts will assist the city in increasing diversion rates and working toward being a recycling leader in the state — which will hopefully bring economic advantages to the region.
"We appreciate the grant and technical assistance offered for the key factors in assuring a successful transition to recycling carts. Santa Fe residents will receive the benefits of increased convenience and larger capacity when changing from bins to recycling carts; this also allows the City to utilize automated collection trucks to empty the carts, which greatly improves worker safety and collection efficiency," said Shirlene Sitton, environmental services division director for the city of Santa Fe, in a statement.
