Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Services in North Carolina is partnering with Coca-Cola and Harris Teeter grocery stores to encourage residents in and around Charlotte, N.C. to recycle more and be more aware of what can and can’t be recycled. According to a News 14 Carolina report, the program will give away $26,000 in prizes as the Coca-Cola Prize Patrol randomly polices recycling bins in the area and rewards exemplary recyclers with $50 Harris Teeter gift cards.

“We’ve seen many people move into this community from other areas that had not so well established programs and haven’t participated the way we should,” Solid Waste Services Director Burce Gledhill said in an interview with News 14. “All of these materials would otherwise go into a landfill, and landfills are preciously few. Mecklenburg County has its own landfill, but it will eventually run out of space.”

Programs like this and RecycleBank, which similarly rewards residents with retail gift cards based on the volume of recycling, are innovative ways to generate interest in recycling, especially in communities that are struggling to get programs up and running. Do you have examples of similar reward-based programs?

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin announced cuts to a range of sanitation services in the city’s historic French Quarter to compensate for a projected $7.5 billion dollar budget shortfall this year. According to the Times-Picayune, Nagin proposed the cuts in services — provided through a contract with SDT Waste & Debris Services — in direct opposition to the city council, which today announced plans to take the mayor to court.

The services Nagin has proposed eliminating — daily street flushing, mechanical street and sidewalk sweeping, and round-the-clock maintenance of litter cans — are among new services that have drawn rave reviews since the SDT contract began in 2007. They amount to $2.05 million of SDT’s $8.9 million annual contract, city records show.

Many of the services to be cut were instituted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to make the French Quarter more welcoming to tourists. Though there is technically enough money in the budget to cover these services, Nagin has previously emphasized the need to set aside some of that money for what amounts to a “rainy day” fund, for use in the event of future hurricanes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that, effective Jan. 18, the Office of Solid Waste (OSW) has been reorganized and renamed as the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery (ORCR).

The reorganization consolidates complementary functions in order to achieve efficiencies in operations. This reorganization consolidates the four major areas of the Resource Conservation Challenge (RCC) under one division; combines data collection and data analysis activities thus streamlining operations to better coordinate EPA’s efforts to analyze and present the benefits of its program; and consolidates waste-to-energy activities in one division and branch.

Whether this change represents a fundamental shift in how the former OSW does business — perhaps in concert with the new administration — or is just a superficial make over remains to be seen. We can only hope that it reflects the federal government’s intention to make recycling and conservation a national priority.

We’ve heard a lot about the tanking value of recyclables of late, but there still has been a sense that regular old garbage would continue to flow as usual, despite the slumping economy. Not so. A Los Angeles Times report details the pinch being felt by California landfills as they see less and less waste coming in and diminishing income from tipping fees.

“There always have been three givens in life: death, taxes and garbage,” said Evan Edgar, a civil engineer and a regulatory advocate for the California Refuse Recycling Council. “Since the 1970s, that’s been a mantra in our industry. But what this recession has shown is that we will have death and taxes, but garbage is no longer recession-proof.”

Of course, looking at the big picture, the fact that Americans are producing less waste is essentially a good thing. It wasn’t too long ago that many were fretting (rightly or wrongly) about dwindling landfill space. But, as the article points out, it also leaves a gaping hole in the budgets of many municipalities and waste companies, a hole exacerbated by the lack of income from recycling. What to do?

What to do with forgetful residents who neglect to get their garbage to the curb on time? Why, send a supernatural serial killer to slaughter them and stash their remains in their own mislaid garbage bags, of course!

Such is the scenario posed by the short amateur film, “Garbage Day,” which is free to view online. A bickering couple fail to properly dispose of their trash for three days, incurring the wrath of The Garbage Man, with predictably grisly results.

While this may not be a practical customer service approach for most haulers, viewing the film may provide a certain degree of catharsis. Procrastinate at your peril!

It’s been a tough day for corporate America: Home Depot, Sprint and Pfizer have all announced job cuts. And so has Caterpillar, the Peoria, Ill.-based manufacturer of engines, and construction and heavy landfill equipment.

According to The Business Journal of Milwaukee, the company reported today that its profit declined 32 percent last year and also announced that it will cut 20,000 jobs. “These actions support lowering our production costs in line with a 25-percent decline in sales volume and reducing Selling, General and Administrative (SG&A) and Research and Development (R&D) costs supporting our Machinery and Engine business by about 15 percent,” Caterpillar said in a release.

Happy Monday, everyone.

The Women’s Council of the Environmental Industry Associations has established an educational scholarship program for employees of the National Solid Wastes Management Association and the Waste Equipment Technology Association. Dependents of the employees are also eligible.

The council will award $2,500 scholarships for the 2009-2010 academic year. Applications are due on April 15 - meaning that you could be in for one monstrously stressful day if you put this and your taxes off until the last minute.

For more information, click here.

Washington, D.C., sanitation workers had a Herculean task before them earlier this week: clean up the National Mall after President Obama’s Tuesday inauguration ceremony.

According to news reports, however, the clean-up effort has proceeded quickly and successfully. Approximately 100 tons of trash have been collected, according to a FoxNews.com report. For comparison’s sake, 40 tons of waste were collected after the New Year’s Eve festivities in New York City’s Times Square.

“I got a call earlier today from one of our residents who wanted to let me know that she went out on the Mall yesterday [who] said, ‘Linda, it was immaculate,” D.C. Department of Public Works public information officer Linda Grant told FoxNews.com.

Here’s a cute story in the Washington Post about the efforts of sanitation crews in Mexico City to clean up ages-old deposits of chewing gum in the city’s public spaces and dissuade citizens from engaging in such unsavory forms of littering in the future.

“We are going to see if we can convince them to use the trash cans,” said [Ricardo Jaral Fernández, the city government’s executive coordinator for the conservation of public spaces], who dreams of tidy bins emblazoned with the slogan: “Do you love El Centro? Then show it!”

I have to say, inappropriate disposal of gum thankfully isn’t really a problem in the community I live in. What about yours?

At the risk of sounding like Doc Brown from “Back to the Future,” you (or, more likely, your business) now may be able to generate electricity from your garbage on site. CNET reports on the Green Energy Machine, or GEM, developed by IST Energy of Waltham, Mass. What looks like a shipping container with two stacks and an air-conditioner attached is actually a self-contained waste processor and generator capable of powering a 200,000-square-foot office building with more than 500 people.

By using gasification technology, the company says the unit produces considerably fewer emissions than traditional incineration. According to the company, the GEM is capable of handling all waste except glass and metal, and converting 95 percent of it to energy, with only 5 percent left over as an ash byproduct.