The City of Woodland, the American Chemistry Council, Keep California Beautiful, PG&E and the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation recently partnered to increase access to recycling in city parks across Woodland. At a press conference unveiling the event in September, Mayor Skip Davies stated, “These recycling bins will create teachable moments for both youth and adults as Woodland continues its efforts toward sustainability.”
The partnership has placed 13 permanent recycle bins in parks like the Community & Senior Center Park and Ferns Park. Eleven more will be added to city parks in the coming months. To reach the goal of 40 permanent bins across the city, the partnership is offering Woodland businesses the opportunity to participate by purchasing and sponsoring bins in other parks such as Crawford Park, Freeman Park and Woodside Park.
Our efforts in Woodland highlight a particularly effective public-private partnership involving my organization, American Chemistry Council (ACC). Together with Keep California Beautiful and California State Parks, we recognized a need for more opportunities to recycle at locations away from home. Through this initiative ACC has placed more than 500 recycling bins on California’s beaches and parks and we’ve conducted educational advertising to increase recycling awareness among consumers.
Our partnership promotes the recycling of plastics and helps educate Californians about the importance of recycling through the “Plastics. Too Valuable To Waste. RecycleSM” campaign.
In this tough economic climate, where our state’s social and environmental priorities have to compete with economic challenges, this partnership model works. We need to continue to figure out how to do more with less and how to use creative solutions to provide our citizens the services they need and expect. We encourage more government, business and non-profit entities to try the public-private partnership approach.