The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation announced the winner of its second annual "National Community Recycling Leadership Award." The recipient of this year's award was the Westmorland-Albert Waste Management Corporation in New Brunswick.
"The success of the RBRC program depends largely on our community partners spreading the word and making it easy for local residents to recycle their used rechargeable batteries," said Ralph Millard, executive vice president, RBRC.
The RBRC Recycling Leadership Award recognizes RBRC community program participants for their outstanding efforts to recycle rechargeable batteries. The Westmorland-Albert Waste Management Corporation was selected from RBRC community program participants across Canada and recognized for the following efforts:
* Being the first community in Canada to sign-up for the RBRC program in 2000;
* Collecting over 650 kilograms of used rechargeable batteries in the first half of 2003, already surpassing the total number of rechargeable batteries they collected in the total 2002 calendar year by almost 50 kilograms;
* Designating April 21, 2003 as "Rechargeable Battery Recycling Day" to coincide with RBRC's annual "Battery Check Week" -- a national call-to-action to encourage people to check and recycle their rechargeable batteries;
* Signing-up 14 fire departments for the RBRC program on "Rechargeable Battery Recycling Day";
* Promoting the recycling of used rechargeable batteries throughout their community through educational literature and special drop-off events.
"Encouraging members of the community to recycle their used rechargeable batteries and help conserve natural resources as well as valuable landfill space is the right thing to do," said Bill Slater, General Manager, Westmorland-Albert Waste Management Corp. "What's great about the RBRC program is that it is easy to implement and it's free -- two reasons why every community in Canada should be encouraging its householders to recycle their used rechargeables!"