Winner of Trash ‘Weight Loss’ Contest Announced
by Ashley Schiller on June 30th, 2008
For the past month, six neighbors in Renton, Washington have been competing to see whose trash can could lose the most weight. The winning family, which decreased its trash weight by 82 percent, was announced June 26.
The contest was part of King County’s “Recycle More. It’s Easy to Do” education campaign. Rebecca Gallagher, mother of the winning family, explained some keys to her family’s success in a county news release.
“I kept an eye on what I was buying and bringing into the house, and avoided buying things with excess packaging or that had packaging that couldn’t be recycled,” she said. “I also set up our house so that it was easy to recycle.”
King County’s EcoConsumer Tom Watson said one thing that largely contributed to the trash weight loss was that there were “virtually no food scraps in anyone’s garbage.” Instead, it was put with yard waste.
Collectively, the neighborhood lost 290 pounds of trash during the four-week challenge.
“If they adopted this as a lifestyle, in one year alone, these six neighbors could reduce their trash output by nearly 3,800 pounds,” said County Solid Waste Division Director Kevin Kiernan.
County officials said they hope the contest has helped to increase recycling awareness. About 90 percent of King County residents participate in their curbside recycling program, but more than half of what ends up in the county landfill is readily recyclable, according to the news release.
Find out what your county and state are doing to increase recycling awareness in your area with our Act Locally section.
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