Joliet Wins Gov's Sustainability Award for Recycling, LED Lights

The city of Joliet issued this news release:

The City of Joliet was honored with a 2013 State of Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Award in recognition of significant achievements in protecting the environment, helping sustain the future, and improving the economy.

The City of Joliet joins 26 other Illinois companies and organizations that "demonstrated a commitment to environmental excellence through outstanding and innovative sustainability practices."

"Joliet is smart to emphasize energy efficiency and sustainability, which saves tax dollars, puts people to work, and improves the environment. Bravo to my hometown, one of only three municipalities to be a first-time winner
of a 2013 Governor's Sustainability Award!" said Illinois State Senator Pat McGuire.

“It’s no surprise that the City of Joliet was given this recognition. Their commitment to sustainability, recycling, and increasing energy efficiency is an impressive example that more cities should follow,” stated Congressman
Bill Foster.

The City of Joliet has realized a variety of cost-saving and environmental achievements in recent years. These achievements include significant improvements to the City’s recycling program, installation of LED traffic signals,
and HVAC retrofits at city operated facilities. The City of Joliet retrofitted 57 traffic signals with LED lights and made energy efficiency improvements at major facilities, including Joliet’s historic Union Station.

These projects combined for energy savings resulted in more than 1.8 million kWh per year.

Using a $519,000 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, Joliet invested in a partnership with Waste Management of Illinois, Inc. to provide every household with new 96-gallon wheeled recycling containers and introduce an every-other-week collection schedule. Because the recycling containers are five times larger than the previous containers, residents can collect more recyclables and Waste Management is able to deploy fewer collection trucks, reducing total emissions.

The City conducted an aggressive outreach campaign to promote the new program, and in the past two years Joliet’s residential recycling volumes increased by 34 percent and landfill disposal volumes dropped by 12 percent. Savings resulting from the change are estimated at 81 tons of CO2 emissions and $850,000 over two years.

The Governor’s Sustainability Awards were presented by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) during a ceremony on October 29, 2013, in East Peoria. ISTC is a unit of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.

Applicants were evaluated primarily on their implementation of sustainability activities. The results had to be significant when evaluated against the organization's size and available resources. The applications were evaluated with consideration to the volume or significance of achievements along with the size
and type of the organization.

Information on the Governor’s Sustainability Awards Program can be found at www.istc.illinois.edu.