REC Steering Committee

REC is led by a steering committee that meets in between the quarterly meetings to help guide REC activities. The following people currently sit on the steering committee:

Sue Doll, Anoka County

Katie Drews, Eureka Recycling

Jake Duame, Specialized Environmental Technologies, Inc.

Kris Hageman, City of St. Paul

Jenny Kedward, Dakota County

Crystal McNally, Dem-Con Companies

Bonnie Nord, Minnesota Waste Wise Foundation

Nathan Reinbold, Pope/Douglas County

Mark Rust, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Cedar Walters, Ottertail County

Recycling Outreach Guide for Minnesota

You’re invited to use our new Recycling Outreach Guide to augment your recycling education campaigns. This guide is a living document, created by the Recycling Education Committee (REC) with the goal to streamline recycling messaging across the state, in a way that makes recycling easier for residents. Standardized communication for recycling best practices will help us collect more material, with less contamination.

The guide breaks down recyclability by material type, suggests drop-offs for specialty recycling (like plastic bags, textiles, and batteries) and it even has a “Frequently Asked Questions” section to explain why certain materials are not recyclable curbside.

The goal of this document is to maintain an agreed-upon list of what is universally acceptable/not acceptable at the curbside or drop-off in Minnesota. This guide is intended to supplement existing programs and provide consistent messaging and signage that will increase consumer confidence in their own abilities to properly dispose of recyclable materials. We  recognize that all programs are unique and the guide might not match perfectly with local programs. However, this attempts to streamline recycling education as much as possible so that terminology and approaches are more consistent, where they can be.

All of the messages in the recycling outreach guide are customizable to your specific program, and they have been vetted by the REC.  The use of these terms is completely voluntary and is meant to encourage public education. A secondary application of this guide might be to inform contract language between haulers and cities/counties across the state. Contract language may be obtained by contacting REC members. Examples of educational materials in which this guide might be used include:

  • Brochures and print materials
  • Website content
  • One-on-one education (phone, in person, email)
  • Presentations
  • Interviews for print or recorded media events
  • Videos
  • PSA (paid or free media – billboards, press releases, radio, TV etc.)
  • Social media
  • Media campaign (includes one or more from the above)

REC convenes quarterly and will continually update this resource to reflect new information and market conditions. The most up-to-date version of this document can be found here.

RECYCLING OUTREACH GUIDE FOR MINNESOTA

The document is supported or reviewed by representatives from the following organizations: haulers, material recycling facilities (MRFs), government, industry,   non-profits, and end-market representatives. If you would like to provide feedback on how the guide is serving you and your community, or if you would like to become a REC member, please contact Gwendolyn Jenkins, Gwendolyn.Jenkins@state.mn.us