The Carolina Recycling Association yesterday awarded WasteZero with its annual Outstanding Business and Industry Recycling Award, which “recognizes a business that has implemented an outstanding waste reduction/recycling program within its organization and as a part of its business.”

WasteZero partner community Dartmouth, MA was recently named a Green City Award finalist by Waste & Recycling News, a leading environmental management publication, for its waste reduction and recycling program.

WasteZero, the leading provider of waste reduction programs in the US, today announced that company President Mark Dancy will speak at the 7th annual Sustainability in Packaging Conference in Orlando, FL, on March 15.

Pay-as-you-throw waste reduction program cited as Sandwich joins six other US municipalities to win prestigious America’s Crown Communities Award.

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Grant Money To Be Used To Purchase Wheeled Recycling Carts

The study said simple waste disposal at landfills creates 0.1 jobs per 1,000 tons of municipal solid waste disposed, while the processing of recyclables is 2 jobs per 1,000 tons of materials. Organics, which takes some manual processing, requires 0.5 jobs per 1,000 tons of material.

Also referred to as “save as you throw,” the process aims to reduce the municipal solid waste stream and eliminate the looming increase in tipping fees at the transfer station, which are expected to rise from $34.50 to $70 or more per ton through a metered bag system.

"I zipped in and out of the Sandwich transfer station this weekend with more recycling than rubbish. Ten years ago, I would have waited in a line of cars stretching onto Rt. 130 waiting to unload more rubbish than recycling. There’s a lesson here that can inform the debate over landfills and the cost of trash disposal..."

In the past three years, according to Assistant Town Administrator Kevin Mizikar, Grafton residents have reduced their solid waste from 5169 tons in 2009 to 3041 tons in 2012, a 41% reduction.

As Bourne and Falmouth work to negotiate a landfill deal, the two towns should turn their eyes northward to examine the success in Sandwich, where the pay-as-you-throw program is helping to reduce trash flow as well as hours at the local transfer station.