- Project Type: Cart Rollout
- Total Households Served: 6,900
- Projected New Tons/Year: 613
- Year: 2016
Emmet County, MI took “partnership” to a new level with their cart rollout in 2016, raising funds from sixteen different sources to meet a challenge from The Recycling Partnership, who provided seed money for the county to match. This collaborative, one of a kind approach allowed Emmet County to purchase 7,000 carts, one for each household in the county, instead of rolling them out community by community.
Emmet County also received a customized public education campaign and technical planning assistance from The Recycling Partnership to support the cart deliveries. One of The Partnership’s rare dual-stream community partners, Emmet County’s participating communities maintained their dual stream recycling system with the conversion to carts. The carts will hold paper, boxes and bags, while existing totes will hold bottles, cartons, jugs and jars.
Already a strong recycling community, each household was already recycling an average of 419 lbs. per household per year (the nationwide average, for reference, is between 300-350 lbs. per household per year). As they moved to carts, the tonnage increased by 50 lbs. per household, effectively raising their tonnage to 469 lbs. per household, or 12% year over year increase.
