Baltimore County Hopes to Get to 50 Percent Recycling Rate

Baltimore County launched on Thursday a new marketing campaign that aims to motivate residents to recycle more by posting town-by-town recycling rates online.

Eight billboards, print and theater advertisements as well as 100,000 postcards that will be sent out across the county all point to BCRecycles.com, a website where visitors will find how their neighborhood scored.

“We’re appealing to community pride and we just think that by making this very transparent for people, a lot of people are going to be interested in seeing just how much is being recycled and how much could be recycled,” Charles Reighart, the county’s recycling and waste prevention manager, said.

The goal is for Baltimore County homes to recycle 50 percent of their disposable waste. The average across the county in 2011 was 14.8 percent, according to Reighart.

Southern Essex scored the lowest at 4 percent, while the Ruxton and Brooklandville area scored highest with 30 percent.

The website is updated monthly. Find out how your town is doing in 2012 here.

In the Catonsville area, the highest rate is 242. percent in 2011 for the Catonsville/Oella area.

“Let’s liken it almost to a runner who wants to improve their speed for a race, having easy access to this data is going to help our residents within each community to work to increase that recycling rate and see the impact of their efforts,” said. 

The campaign is meant to promote the , which began in February 2010. Later that year, all county condominium and apartment complexes were included.

Single-stream recycling allows residents to discard papers, plastics, aluminum—all recyclable material—in one bin, on a weekly basis.

Kamenetz touted the fiscal importance of recycling during a press conference Thursday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.

“By diverting these materials to recycling instead, we actually saved $2.7 million [in 2011] in avoiding disposal costs,” Kamenetz said.

If the county reaches its 50 percent goal, that would equal an annual savings of $9 million.