How Louisville, KY Leveraged Education to Increase Their Recyclable Materials by 74%
By providing targeted education to residents in Louisville, KY, Recycle Coach helped reduce contamination rates and increase recyclable materials in Louisville's waste streams.
Background
Population: 620,000
Single Family Homes: 84,000
Last Year's Total Users: 176,858
Yearly Interactions: 3.6 million
Louisville, KY collects recycling from single-family homes with various collection frequency. Ninety-seven percent of residents participate in the subscription-based waste pickup services; however, there is still confusion surrounding adjacent unincorporated homes with different collection and recycling requirements. Ongoing education is key to reminding Louisville Metro residents which day to set out recycling and what is recyclable.
Solution
Since 2019, Louisville Metro’s education team has used Recycle Coach to schedule reminders and conduct material searches. In 2023, the city kicked off its Recycle Right program with bilingual English and Spanish tags: green (way to know), yellow (needs attention), or red (unacceptable material) for two to three consecutive collection days in a given week.
The city also uses the Nextdoor app to feature “kNOw Waste Wednesdays” and questions inspired by Recycle Coach’s quizzes, which allows them to make use of all avenues available to them and to extend their engagement with residents.
Educating residents on scheduled collection times and what items are accepted in recycling containers supplements their continued outreach. These outreach efforts include events, school visits, social media, community meetings, and business outreach.
Results
During a recent tagging week, Recycle Coach had 296 unique visitors with a 30% increase in material searches. The green tags have increased by 74% from the start, and the yellow tags have decreased by 36%. Louisville residents also make great use of the What Goes Where tool, as well as the Collection Calendar. Their correct response rate on quizzes is 83%, which is a 26% increase from last year.
Key Takeaway
Ongoing education, clear messaging, and consistent outreach improves recycling metrics by leading to less contamination and an increase in recyclables.
“Our residents highly appreciate Recycle Coach. The automatic reminders streamline our tasks, and the real-time notification feature is exceptional. We continuously leverage the data to monitor and validate our outreach initiatives.”
-Karen Maynard, Education Manager Louisville Metro Services, Kentucky
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