Clean Your Files Day was once again celebrated as the premier Earth Day event of cities, counties, businesses, universities, and many other organizations around the country. The event attracted a record number of participants, as more than 165 cities and nearly 100 other governmental, business, and educational organizations celebrated the event this past April 22. Collectively, these participating organizations recycled over 900 tons of paper and office products.

Clean Your Files Day is the official Earth Day event of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The program, designed to increase awareness and participation in office recycling programs, challenges employees to not only rid their files of unneeded paper and other office products, but to recycle them. It has expanded significantly this year and is guaranteed to keep growing as enthusiasm for this unique, fun, and simple event gains popularity.

Clean Your Files Day received outstanding national promotion this year through a radio tour sponsored by the Recycling at Work Campaign. Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle, and Richmond (CA) Mayor Rosemary Corbin participated in a series of eight radio interviews on various local, state, and nationally-syndicated radio networks during April 21-22. It is estimated that these interviews reached out to more than 500,000 Americans about the Clean Your Files Day event!

Several participants have also reported excellent results from their local events. These events also received local media around the country, heightening the communication about Clean Your Files Day and enhancing promotion for recycling. Here are just a few highlights from these events:

City of Philadelphia

The City recruited Mayor Edward Rendell to issue a proclamation declaring April 26-30 as Clean Your Files Week for the entire city. Deputy Mayor for Community Affairs Manuel Ortiz kicked off the week with a press conference announcing the mayoral proclamation and invited all city offices and local businesses to participate.

City of Ann Arbor

The City recruited local sponsor Volkswagen to hold a contest for participating city employees to guess how much paper could be stored inside one of its Volkswagen cars. The winner received prizes from Volkswagen and the City. Ann Arbor also developed a Web site specifically to promote its Clean Your Files Day activities.

City of Akron/Summit County

For their first-ever event, the city and county teamed up to collect nearly 17 tons of material in just one day! Nine buildings participated and Mayor Don Plusquellic was on site to show his support for the event.

City of Tucson

The City took local promotion into its own hands by designing posters with a photo endorsement by Mayor George Miller, who encouraged city employees and local businesses to participate with the message "Kiss Your Files and Folders Goodbye." The City also sent out 5,800 paycheck stuffers to its employees encouraging them to participate.

City of Gainesville

The City’s coordinators promoted two events, one for all City departments and one for the entire Gainesville business community. These events yielded nearly 10 tons of paper collected for recycling. The events were promoted through television interviews on the local PBS station and several radio interviews leading up to the events.

The Recycling at Work Campaign is already gearing up for the 2000 Clean Your Files Day event. Its goal is to have "200 Cities in the Year 2000." We hope you will plan to help reach that goal. The Recycling at Work Campaign will conduct ten additional training workshops in the fall. If your city is interested hosting a workshop, contact Jennifer DeLong at (202) 861-6776 for more information. Registration forms for this event will be sent to all mayors in August.

We congratulate and thank all of our participants for making this event successful. Without local support, participation, and planning, Clean Your Files Day would not be possible. We also thank our Recycling at Work supporters: Boise Cascade Corporation, Canon U.S.A., Inc., The Direct Marketing Association, Fort James Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, International Paper, Lexmark International, Inc., U.S. Postal Service, and Weyerhaeuser Company. These companies provided promotional support and free training tools and materials for all participants in our 1999 Earth Day celebration.