Mountain Brook reduced its recycling contamination most across six months in a competition with Hoover, Homewood and Vestavia Hills. The public awareness effort tried to spread the word that it’s better “when in doubt” to “throw it out” than put non-recyclable material into the system.
“While we had good participation and enthusiasm from our residents, April contamination was higher than usual, as overall tonnage was higher,” according to a press release about the effort that began in November. “This is most likely because people were at home most of the time with the lockdown, and our numbers reflect this.”
Firehouse Shelter will be a beneficiary of the challenge. Council members from the cities that lost will donate to the organization and Community Foundation of Birmingham and Birmingham Recycling and Recovery are each donating $2,500 to the shelter.