Recycling and Special Waste Tech News

I hope everyone had an excellent learning experience at WASTECON® 2013. I know I did. Seeing old friends and meeting new colleagues is a very special component of this conference for me. I was thrilled to mentor the Young Professionals and fascinated with their ideas and enthusiasm. This group comprises a wonderful compliment of next generation waste management professionals whom I hope will join many of our technical divisions, especially Recycling and Special Waste.

The WASTECON® programs were outstanding this year and the keynote speakers A+. Our Recycling and Special Waste Technical Division meeting was well attended and brought in many new faces with great ideas. We encouraged topics for training webinars, ideas for workshops and formats for future conferences. I am hoping to coordinate quarterly conference calls with our division members to discuss issues, assist with suggestions to implement new programs and just say “Hello!!” Prizes were raffled compliments of Tim Flanagan, our Director, and others.

But I need to say that the best highlight for me was standing on stage at the Awards breakfast to receive both a Gold Award of Excellence for Collections and a Silver Award for Marketing. The City of Santa Monica is very proud to be acknowledged by our prestigious organization and the colleagues from the technical divisions issuing these awards. Although receiving these awards was really the spark of the week for me, I want to tell you about something that I valued even more, in preparation for WASTECON® 2013.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be on the panel to review the entries submitted from across the country and Canada for our Recycling and Special Waste Division Awards. Wow! Many cities, counties, states and regional areas have fabulous programs, and they all should be acknowledged. I learned quite a bit just from reading these informative presentations. I encourage all of you to access our technical division’s awards website and read about many of the programs that cities and counties are offering to the residents. I hope you feel the same excitement as I did after reading about these new programs and, as a member of our division or others, perhaps you will volunteer to review the awards applications for WASTECON® 2014. We would love for you to join us.

Did you know that SWANA webinars are also a fantastic media tool to learn even more about these award winning programs? These webinars allow you to ask questions and receive suggestions from experienced staff which may assist in developing and implementing some of these concepts and programs within your own organization.

We have come a long way since I started in the waste management profession in 1989. I am hoping that with your continual participation in our division, we will see greater accomplishments in recycling and special waste management benefitting our future GREENER generations.

Kim Braun manages the City of Santa Monica’s Resource Recovery and Recycling Division. She can be reached at 310-458- 8528 or kim.braun@smgov.net.