Cans For Cash: Cities Recycle Over 100 Million Aluminum Cans
By Susan Jarvis
November 21, 2005
The United States Conference of Mayors and Novelis, Inc. are pleased to announce the winners of the second Cans For Cash: City Recycling Challenge. The program challenged like'sized cities to compete against each other in aluminum can collection for monetary awards and to encourage recycling. During the first two weeks in September, more than 40 cities collected over three million pounds of aluminum cans, which equates to 107 million used beverage cans.
“We are pleased with the results of this year’s campaign and want to thank communities for their enthusiasm and tremendous effort in encouraging their residents to recycle aluminum cans,” said Kevin Greenawalt, President, Novelis North America. “Recycling is a fundamental element of Novelis’ corporate sustainability commitment, and we are dedicated to fostering efforts to promote the value of recycling aluminum through programs like Cans for Cash in order to encourage and help cities sustain their local efforts.”
The 2005 campaign saw a 73 percent increase in aluminum cans recycled – an additional 45 million cans were collected and recycled over the 2004 campaign, which collected a total of 62 million cans. Based on the national economic average for recycled aluminum cans, the 2005 Cans For Cash: City Recycling Challenge cans collected and processed have a dollar value at approximately $2 million.
The winners of the $5,000 awards for the most aluminum cans recycled are:
- Division One (population 250,000+) Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett at 1,002,792 pounds
- Division Two (population 100,000-249,999) Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam at 182,672 pounds
- Division Three (population 50,000-99,999) Des Plaines (IL) Mayor Anthony Arredia at 356,380 pounds
- Division Four (population below 50,000) Artesia (CA) Mayor Larry R. Nelson at 73,020 pounds
To help mayors engage their communities in recycling and raise awareness about its importance over the long term, cities submitted innovative education and marketing ideas for an additional $5,000 award. The cities being recognized for the most innovative campaigns are as follows:
- Division One: Louisville Mayor Jerry E. Abramson
- Division Two: Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson
- Division Three: Fargo Mayor Bruce Furness
- Division Four: Monticello (IN) Mayor Bob Fox
Milwaukee, Knoxville and Salt Lake City are repeat winners.
“We are proud that our Cans For Cash Program helped jump'start existing programs and redirected many communities to focus on a common goal. Mayors leveraged their relationships with community and civic organizations, partnered with schools, and linked the can recycling challenge with community improvement and service projects,” said Conference President Long Beach (CA) Mayor Beverly O’Neill. “Participating cities should be excited and proud that they contributed to the recycling of more than three million pounds of aluminum cans.”
The aluminum can is the country’s most recycled beverage container and has been for more than 20 years. In 2004, more than 100 billion aluminum beverage cans were produced in the United States and 51 percent of them were recycled (a 1.2 percent increase over the previous year). Nearly the same amount – close to 50 billion cans or roughly $1 billion worth of aluminum – was lost to landfill.
For a complete list of cities that participated in the 2005 Cans for Cash program please visit www.usmayors.org/mwma.
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