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A Waste Management Company • BACKGROUND Hennepin County requires municipalities to recycle 167 of their waste streams by 1988. To achieve the County's 167 goal, municipalities must implement ambitious recycling programs aimed at recovering as much material as possible. For this project, we are relying on our obser- vation of other programs throughout the country, as well as our own experience gained through the operation of curbside collection programs in Santa Rosa, San Jose, Livermore, and Oceanside, California; Camden, New Jersey; and Brampton, Ontario. By blending the proven elements of other programs with the unique require- ments of St. Anthony, we have designed an effective, reliable, and effi- cient system. Most successful residential recycling systems, while dif- fering greatly from city to city, share two important features: conve- nience for participants and effective promotion. These two features and their implications for the municipalities soliciting this proposal, are discussed below. Convenience for Participants • Recycling programs that are convenient for residents have higher partici- pation rates and recycle more material. The three most important factors affecting recycling convenience are frequency of collection, storage for recyclables, and preparation requirements. Weekly collection is the most effective collection frequency. Programs offering weekly collection achieve much higher participation rates than programs offering monthly collection. Typical participation rates for weekly programs include Austin, Texas, 60 - 707 of eligible households; San Jose, California, 557; and Voorhees Township, New Jersey, 757. Typi- cal participation rates for monthly programs, in contrast, include Edina, 19 - 237 of eligible households; Minneapolis, 22 - 257; and Mound, 207. Weekly programs encourage participation for several reasons. First, it is easier for residents to remember to set our recyclables on a given day of the week than on a given day of the month. For example, it is easier to remember that recycling day is Wednesday than it is to remember that recycling day is the third day of each month. For the same reason, par- ticipation is even greater when recyclables are collected on the same day as garbage. Then, residents need only to remember that "garbage day" is recycling day as well. Residents who forget a monthly collection day can be greatly inconvenienced by the need to set aside space for two months' accumulation of recyclables. Newspapers, in particular, can pile up rapidly. Storage requirements for • monthly programs can also create fire hazards and attract rodents and insects.