By Susan Jarvis
August 7, 2006

The United States Conference of Mayors and Novelis have teamed up with Keep America Beautiful to expand our annual, national Cans for Cash Contest. Officially launched at the Annual Meeting in June, Cans for Cash now offers a total of twelve $5,000 awards and four $2,500 awards for Keep America Beautiful Affiliates. Over the past two years, more than a hundred cities have participated in the Challenge, recycling more than 160 million aluminum cans, recovering more then $2.5 million in aluminum value, and diverting nearly 5 million pounds of aluminum from landfills.

Cities competing in the Cans for Cash Recycling Challenge compete against like sized cities in three categories: Most Cans Collected; Most Innovative Idea; and Partnering with a KAB Affiliate. The Keep America Beautiful category is new this year, and has been added to encourage sustained recycling initiative.

Last year’s participants used the Cans for Cash City Recycling Challenge to jump start their existing recycling program, introduce a new initiative or remind the community about the importance of aluminum can recycling. The Cans for Cash City Recycling Challenge Best Ideas and Practices Guide highlights last years participants, including winners Louisville (KY) and it’s “CANtucky Derby” Salt Lake City (UT), and the PSA created by local 5th graders to demonstrate the importance of life long recycling, Milwaukee (WI), and “The Magic of Recycling Campaign,” Fargo (ND) “Help Fargo Crush The Competition” Campaign, and Monticello (IN) ties in to the building of a new skate park.

In addition to Louisville and Milwaukee, participating Division One Cities, (population over 500,000) included Indianapolis, which focused on schools, Toledo (OH), which targeted the University of Toledo, Tulsa (OK), Sacramento (CA), and Pittsburgh (PA).

Division Two cities, (population 100,000-249,999) like Waco and Abilene (TX), and Division Three Cities (population 50,000-99,999) Hesperia (CA), Palatine (IL), Gainesville (FL) and Odessa (TX) leveraged community partnership for promotion at community events and implemented a broad media strategy, including e-mails and an updated web site presence to spread the word.

Cities in division four (population under 50,000) also had big results. Gadsden (AL) did not have a recycling program prior to the contest. Now, Recycling is Blooming! In Conway (AR), art students created recycling bins for can collection and kids learned that recycling was “a-maze-ingly” easy at their event kick off, which included a large maze for kids to navigate. Tupelo (MS) collected Cans for Critters, where proceeds from the can drive would go to the animal shelter. Richmond (IN), Sierra Vista (CA), Burleson (TX), South Charleston (WV), and Cathedral City (CA) also participated and got the word out through their local press and community events.

The 2006 Cans for Cash City Recycling Challenge runs from September 15-30 and is free. Cities can sign up online and download marketing and communication materials as well as the best practices guide at usmayors.org/mwma.

For more information about the 2006 Cans for Cash City Recycling Challenge, contact Susan Jarvis at sjarvis@usmayors.org or 202-861-6760.