American Recycler, March 2010 | Cities heed call of Cans for Cash

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, Novelis Inc. and Keep America Beautiful, Inc. (KAB) announced the winners in the sixth annual Cans for Cash: City Recycling Challenge at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, DC. The challenge pits cities of comparable sizes in a competition of creativity and execution, offering monetary awards to the cities that conduct the most innovative campaigns and collect the most aluminum cans. During October 2009, more than 40 cities collected over 125 million used beverage cans.

Novelis is committed to increasing the recycling rate for used aluminum beverage containers in the United States from 54 percent today to 75 percent by 2015,” said Jean-Marc Germain, president, Novelis North America. “Each year, Americans still discard over 50 billion aluminum cans which end up in landfills. Through campaigns such as this, awareness of the importance of recycling is increased and the message is spread that every can recovered is turned back into a new beverage can – saving energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and decreasing the use of natural resources.”

The 2009 campaign categories were modified to improve opportunities for smaller-size cities and encourage more innovative campaigns to promote aluminum can recycling.

First Place: Milwaukee, Wisconsin Mayor Tom Barrett

Second Place: Mobile, Alabama Mayor Sam Jones

Third Place: Fontana, California Mayor Mark Nuami

Fourth Place: Bowling Green, Kentucky Mayor Elaine Walker

First Place: Irvine, California Mayor Sukhee Kang

Second Place: Canfield, Ohio Mayor Bill Kay

Third Place: Wellington, Florida Mayor Darell Bowen

First Place: Montgomery, Alabama Mayor Todd Strange & Montgomery Clean City Commission

Second Place: LaGrange, Georgia Mayor Jeff Lukken & Keep Troup Beautiful

Third Place: Angleton, Texas Mayor Patrick Henry & Keep Angleton Beautiful

Forth Place: Newport News, Virgina Mayor Joe Frank & Newport News Public Works Recycling