Passion Church
What: Utilizing the Anoka County business recycling grant to obtain recycling bins to pair with all trash receptacles.
Why: To provide their worshipers and guests with the opportunity to do the right thing and recycle.
How: Worked with Minnesota Waste Wise to identify areas of their building that needed collections improvements, right size their trash dumpster and develop a grant application.
Results: Cut trash services in half and doubled their recycling service effectively diverting an estimated 28,912 pounds of recyclable material from the trash every year!
Passion Church in Fridley began a new recycling program in early 2016 in response to a growing congregation and a growing desire from within to recycle more. As a place of worship and also an event center, Passion Church creates a significant amount of recyclable waste. Once they realized how much recyclable waste they created, Passion Church created a goal of recycling as much of that material as possible.
To start the process of enhanced recycling, Waste Wise met with Passion Church to develop a recycling implementation plan involving pairing recycling bins with all trash receptacles, displaying high quality signage to educate their visitors and also utilizing some of the multimedia displays to promote their recycling program.
In order to get the bins they needed, Passion Church utilized the Anoka County business recycling grant to obtain receptacles matching their existing waste container aesthetic. Now all of their trash receptacles have a recycling partner located directly next to it and the results of this bin pairing have been excellent. With this added recycling collection, Passion Church was able to cut their trash pick-ups in half while doubling their recycling service. This added recycling capacity corresponds to an estimated 28,912 pounds of additional material being recycled every year at Passion Church.
“We’re thrilled with the jump in recycling that we’ve already made,” commented Manager Brian Bania, “We’re also confident and excited about the opportunity to improve even more through the education of our congregation and visitors.” Brian was also eager to point out that the recycling improvements are making their congregation happy as well. “Recycling just makes people feel good. They’re being efficient and doing the right thing and it makes them happy!”
All told, Passion Church has been a model for what the Anoka County business recycling grant can achieve; improved recycling and increased public awareness of the benefits of recycling.