County of Monmouth
For Immediate Release:
June 7, 2016

Long Branch receives $10k in recycling initiative grant
City rewarded for increasing its recycling rate

 
LONG BRANCH, NJ – The Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders recently awarded the City of Long Branch with a check as part of Monmouth County’s Recycling Stimulus Initiative (RSI) grant program, which was created to encourage municipalities to increase their recycling rates.

Long Branch received a $10,000 RSI grant for raising their rate by 40.2 percent and fulfilling the other requirements of the incentive program for the 2013-2014 cycle.

“The significant increase in tonnage recycled shows the emphasis Long Branch places on the importance of recovering materials that can be used again and help protect our environment,” said Freeholder Deputy Director Serena DiMaso, liaison to the Monmouth County Reclamation Center. “A 40 percent increase clearly demonstrates the city’s focus to educate, advertise and get the word out were successful.”

Long Branch Recycling Coordinator Fred Migliaccio accepted the award which was presented at the freeholders’ public meeting on May 26 in Long Branch.

“Long Branch’s outstanding achievement of boosting its recycling rate is due to informing its residents, schools and businesses about how to properly recycle and handle waste removal,” continued DiMaso. “The educational component of recycling and removing waste is essential to keep our water supply clean and to extend the life of the landfill.”

Long Branch intends to use the grant to sponsor recycling education assemblies for the Long Branch public schools, focusing on recycling and litter abatement. The city will produce website television programing, customized for Long Branch, which will offer education on recycling to all children in the Long Branch City schools. The city will be designing stickers with the residential recycling requirements and electronics recycling requirements on them for residential use. Long Branch will also be purchasing 501 recycling buckets for use throughout the city.

In order to qualify for a grant under the RSI grant program, the town had to set up an appointment with Reclamation Center staff to determine what recycling efforts were being made in the town. Long Branch also had to attend three Municipal Recycling Coordinators meetings and raise the recycling rate by at least two percent in the town.

The RSI grant program is overseen by the Recycling Division of the Monmouth County Reclamation Center. For more information about recycling programs, call 732-683-8686.

# # #