Community Spotlight

Each month, MassRecycle will shed the spotlight on a community and their work on Mass Recycles Paper.  This page will always be under construction so please keep checking back. 

City of Melrose (updated August 28, 2009)
Over a year ago, the City of Melrose and its elected officials passed a resolution supporting the goals of the Mass Recycles Paper Campaign. Since then, the city has taken major steps to help MassRecycle accomplish its goal of diverting one million pounds of paper from trash to recycling.
 
Besides providing curbside and drop-off recycling, Melrose promotes recycling by sponsoring a recycling contest in the schools, offering shredding of personal documents to residents and businesses, and promoting cardboard recycling.
 
The city has sponsored a recycling contest in eight elementary schools (public, private and regional) for the past five years. This year, we collected over 69 tons of paper. The contest is divided into two smaller contests: Fall into Recycling and Spring into Recycling. The winning school, The SEEM Collaborative School captured first place in the fall contest by recycling the most paper per student by weight. The Hoover School won in the spring by achieving the highest percent increase in recycled paper compared to the fall.  The winning school receives a trophy to display until the end of the next contest. The middle school and high school also recycle, with help from their environmental clubs, and collectively rescued over 45 tons of paper from the trash .
 
Students in Ms. Anna Maria Melito’s high school art classes celebrated Earth Day by decorating paper bags donated by Johnnies, a local supermarket. They decorated the bags with environmental themes and distributed them during April to highlight the importance of recycling, reducing energy use and conserving natural resources.
 
The Public Works Department held its seventh annual DPW Day for students in grades K-3 on May 7. This is an open house at the City Yard, in which students learn about the different jobs that Public Works employees do around the city. This year, the theme was Team Green;  recycling and environmental topics were highlighted. Every teacher and student was given a reusable grocery bag that was donated by Trader Joe’s, Hannafords, Shaws, Stop and Shop and Johnnies supermarkets. Inside the bag was the popular DPW t-shirt and reusable snack container to help reduce trash in the classrooms.
 
Melrose Cooperative Bank and the city cosponsored their first paper shredding event during our Saturday Electronic Drop-off in June. Proshred diverted 3000 lbs. of paper, shredding documents on site for residents and businesses.
 
Melrose is actively trying to reduce its trash tonnage by mailing a flyer out to every home graphically depicting the correct way to recycle cardboard.
 
Each of the above events helps residents think about recycling and makes it more convenient, which helps Melrose contribute to the million ton goal.