Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Friday, March 13, 2015

East Price Hill Recycles

BrainBox is excited to share our most recent project: "East Price Hill Recycles" Campaign.

The City of Cincinnati, in partnership with Rumpke Recycling, Green Umbrella, Keep Cincinnati Beautiful, and Metro is launching an integrated recycling campaign in the neighborhood of East Price Hill in Cincinnati. The campaign will begin on March 16th. We will be canvassing the 4,000 or so residential homes in Cincinnati's East Price Hill (EPH). Businesses, schools, and community organizations will also be targeted for support for a fully integrated approach.

Our primary goal is to increase and sustain curbside recycling participation in EPH. Our secondary goals are (1) identify barriers and benefits of recycling for the EPH community, (2) test the idea that the availability of interior bin for a household resolves a major barrier for sustained recycling behavior, and (3) raise awareness of recycling in general and specific challenges Rumpke Recycling faces and the community can assist. (For example, plastic bags can't be recycled because they jam a $32 million dollar Rumpke recycling operation. However, other entities, such as Kroger, will take plastic bags and recycle them.)

Cincinnati's current curbside recycling participation rate averages 70%, making it a leader in the Mid-West. The City has a goal of becoming a national leader. It plans to target all 50 neighborhoods over the next 10-15 years. We hope to continue to gather important recycling data along the way helping the City succeed.

While the commitment to sustainability and curbside recycling is very common in other cities, very few have the infrastructure necessary to measure the impact of such an undertaking. The City of Cincinnati has incorporated Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFID Tags) on all Rumpke recycling trucks. All recycling carts are given a specific Tag Identification Number. This allows the City to track every cart and to know when each specific cart is tipped by the recycling truck. This type of infrastructure is new in the world of curbside recycling and Cincinnati is one of the few cities in the country that has it giving the City the measurement tools necessary to track its progress in increasing recycling rates. BrainBox is excited to be able to facilitate this process and help the City continuously improve its recycling campaign initiatives.

BrainBox ltd is a social purpose company dedicated to serving other social purpose companies and projects through our process management abilities and our understanding of social impact and collective actions and behavioral changes for the better.