Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams launched a new county-wide recycling awareness campaign Wednesday. He says “Start a new cycle- Recycle” comes with a challenge.
“So if over the next two years we can increase the amount of material we recycle by twenty percent we’ll hit the national average of 36 percent," McAdams says. "So my challenge today is that we double the amount of trash that we recycle and recognized the environmental and economic benefits that it will bring to the Salt Lake Valley,” says McAdams.
The Wasatch Front Waste and Recycling District manages the trash of Salt Lake County. Pam Roberts, the Executive Director of the District says education in the culture of recycling needs to expand more quickly.
“And I’ll tell you some of our strongest advocates for education are our children within the district that will you know, tell our parents, “ says Roberts.
Ashlee Yoder is the Salt Lake Valley Landfill Coordinator. She says county residents are the first link in the recycling chain. She says it can be as simple as tossing in that empty water bottle.
“These plastic water bottles are a perfect example of something that is very easily recyclable but seldom is,” Yoder says.
Signs of the new campaign are being posted on the District’s new Compressed Natural Gas recycling trucks, at various other county buildings and at Salt Lake County's recycling website.
