Member Success

Getting participation in recycling programs from residents can often be the biggest obstacle for multi-tenant buildings. After having a Minnesota Waste Wise assessment, Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) created a recycling program based on recommendations of the report and their objective to target their largely East African immigrant tenant population. The main obstacle that MPHA faced was that English is a second language to most of the tenants and the culture is new to many, who have just recently arrived in the United States. The pilot project which started at one of its five-hundred unit buildings was a two-fold initiative. The first undertaking was a bilingual education drive and the second was making recycling less burdensome. MPHA hired two residents through a resident work program, who with the help of its staff went door-to-door with recycling bins making the case to residents that recycling was a great benefit. Each week, the two residents collect recycling from each participating tenant. As a result of these educational efforts, MPHA has increased their tenant recycling percentages from 5% to 35% in just a couple of years and have started to expand the program to a second building with the same concept.