Hey, municipal recycling coordinator! How do you know if your curbside recycling program is performing well? Do you know how to connect to powerful easy-to-use tools to increase your performance and address complicated issues like contamination? Do you have the ability to compare your multifamily, drop-off, and curbside program performance year over year?
We now have an easy way to help. The Municipal Measurement Program, or MMP, a new measurement tool, delivers all of these answers, benefits and more.
Developed by the creators of the ReTrac reporting system, Emerge Knowledge, and made available in collaboration with The Recycling Partnership, MMP is FREE to all municipalities in the U.S. Cities and towns using this powerful new tool get immediate feedback from the data they enter by using standardized and powerful metrics such as pounds per household served.
Consistent use of the MMP tool will give your municipality a picture of how your program is doing over time by tracking how program changes impact performance – for example, how education initiatives affect contamination rates or increase tonnage collected. As this data set grows over time, state recycling and commerce offices can potentially start to identify the amount of material available in states and regions for new market development. Imagine – with the click of a button, the ability to produce reports for the city manager, the budget office, elected officials, the media, or the public. MMP makes this process of recording and retrieving data as easy as 1-2-3.
To use MMP, all you have to do is set up a MMP account. Once approved, you enter basic benchmark community information and then can access two MMP components to record data: Curbside and/or Drop-off. The Curbside component records data for both the municipality’s solid waste and recycling programs. It also includes multifamily recycling and organics collection program – if those are provided. The Drop-off component does the same for drop-off recycling programs. Put it all together, and the two components provide a comprehensive picture of your diversion efforts.
Start the process with basic program information in hand, and the MMP will only take 20-30 minutes to fill in all the requested data. To streamline the process, MMP provides a basic checklist of information to have available, including household counts, tonnage, material collection lists, and other common program metrics.
How long does it take to see the results of the data entry? Immediately! Once your information is recorded, you can go right to a screen of reports, recommended program tools, and performance improvement suggestions. Program comparisons to national standards and to peers in the MMP program are also available immediately.
Emerge Knowledge and The Recycling Partnership collaborated in the design of MMP to help standardize how recycling programs across the country measure their efforts. The system is designed for use only municipal governments for now; a platform for county and regional programs is under development. We know that municipal program managers are constantly asked to demonstrate the benefits of their programs. With MMP, the ability to share critical program data is literally right at your fingertips.
Emerge Knowledge and The Recycling Partnership are looking for leaders like you in municipal recycling to step up and use this game-changing measurement tool. By using the MMP tool, you will be building an unprecedented phenomenon in the U.S. recycling system – a community of program managers across the country using common metrics in a system that provides immediate unique feedback to each and every user. Start the data journey today at www.recyclesearch.com/profile/mmp
Have questions? Contact the MMP team at mmp@re-trac.com