RRRASOC Teaming with Michigan EGLE and The Recycling Partnership

Novi, MICH. (August 3, 2020) – The Resource Recovery and Recycling Authority of Southwest Oakland County (RRRASOC) announced today it’s joining with the Michigan Dept. of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and The Recycling Partnership, a national nonprofit dedicated to transforming recycling for good, on launching a new project to help residents in nine local communities recycle more, better.

RRRASOC is a nine-member municipal solid waste authority representing a population of more than 284,000 residents in Farmington, Farmington Hills, Milford, Milford Township, Novi, South Lyon, Southfield, Walled Lake and Wixom.

The Recycling Partnership (TRP), with special support from the Saginaw-based, woman-owned small business Iris Waste Diversion Specialists, is leading the RRRASOC effort on what’s being called a first-of-its-kind project for EGLE that recently kicked off involving RRRASOC’s public drop-off recycling facility in Novi and its Southfield processing facility.

The goal of the project is to evaluate the character and quality of the material being recycled, increase recycling, and reduce contamination. Improved recycling will improve safety for recycling workers, improve processing efficiency, and improve overall product value.

“We’re excited about the partnership with TRP and EGLE because we know better recycling is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do,” said RRRASOC General Manager Mike Csapo. “Recycling correctly not only reduces the need for landfills in southeast Michigan, but creates and supports jobs and protects the environment.”

The new $2.1 million TRP-EGLE project is launching with more than $800,000 in grants to 14 recycling programs in Michigan this year that serve more than 300,000 households statewide, including 74,000 households in southwest Oakland County.

Michael Csapo, general manager of the Resource Recovery and Recycling Authority of Southwest Oakland County (RRRASOC) sorts through recyclables looking for contaminated materials as part of an ambitious education project to improve the quality and quantity of recycling in nine local communities during 2020-21. The effort is part of a $2.1 million statewide initiative funded with a grant from the national nonprofit The Recycling Partnership and the Michigan Dept. of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

Six of the grantees, including RRRASOC’s new initiative supported with its $150,000 grant from TRP-EGLE, are starting the recycling quality improvement program this summer/fall. The remaining eight will conduct their work next spring.

The RRRASOC initiative with TRP aligns with EGLE’s national award-winning “Know It Before You Throw It” recycling education campaign featuring the Recycling Raccoon Squad. The campaign is promoting best practices and emphasizes that recycling materials saves energy, reduces water use, decreases greenhouse gases, conserves resources and translates into local jobs, with the aim of increasing Michigan’s recycling rate to 30% by 2025.

“We know southwest Oakland County residents want to recycle the right way,” Csapo said. “By building on Michigan’s Know It Before Your Throw It campaign, we are providing our residents with the education and tools necessary to keep valuable resources from being wasted.”

RRRASOC is partnering with EGLE and TRP to develop and implement operational and educational strategies that will improve the quality of its recycling streams, leading to cleaner recycling practices and a reduction in the amount of contaminated materials (non-recyclable items) improperly going into recycling bins and at drop-off sites. The results of this project also will inform RRRASOC’s efforts to replicate any success in Novi at its drop-off site in Southfield.

“We are eager to begin our work with RRRASOC and EGLE to capture more quality recyclables that can be transformed into raw materials, creating a healthier and less wasteful planet and a stronger healthier community,” said Jill Martin, Director of Community Programs at The Recycling Partnership. “We know from experience that educating residents to recycle the correct way is key to creating and sustaining successful drop-off recycling programs for communities in southwest Oakland County.”

The new research and education activities come as Michigan and states across the U.S. are seeing significant increases in the volume of curbside recycling due to more Americans sheltering and working from home to help mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 disease.

Now, more than ever, Michigan residents view recycling as an essential public service. And during a time of social distancing where many non-essential employers are closed and commercial recycling is near an all-time low, producers see residential recycling programs as a critical supplier of manufacturing feedstock so more companies can make their products from recycled content instead of new materials.

“We are looking forward to partnering with Michigan communities and The Recycling Partnership on this data-driven approach,” said Liz Browne, acting director of EGLE’s Materials Management Division. “It’s more important than ever to communicate with the public in order to improve the quality of materials being recycled. We all have a role to play in helping businesses get materials to make the essential products Michigan needs for our economic recovery from COVID-19, such as toilet paper, food containers, and shipping boxes.”

About The Recycling Partnership
The Recycling Partnership is a national nonprofit organization that leverages corporate partner funding to transform recycling for good in states, cities, and communities nationwide. As the only organization in the country that engages the full recycling supply chain from the corporations that manufacture products and packaging to local governments charged with recycling to industry end markets, haulers, material recovery facilities, and converters. Since 2014, the nonprofit change agent diverted 230 million pounds of new recyclables from landfills, saved 465 million gallons of water, avoided more than 250,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases, and drove significant reductions in targeted contamination rates. Learn more at www.recyclingpartnership.org.

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