Charlevoix, Boyne City, and East Jordan explore curbside recycling options

Above: Charlevoix City Manager Mark Heydlauff stands with recycling bins. The city was recognized for its commitment to sustainability by the 2019 Michigan Green Communities Challenge.

Big thanks go to the Charlevoix County Community Foundation for supporting waste diversion interests in Northern Michigan! We are honored to to support the interests of three cities in Charlevoix County in researching opportunities to add curb-side recycling to the suite of services they provide to their residential and commercial stakeholders.

Did you know that communities that offer centralized recycling drop-off sites see participation rates of only 9%? With curbside recycling, that participation rate goes up to 67%! The Charlevoix County Community Foundation supports the quest for curbside in Charlevoix, East Jordan, and Boyne City and is supporting a deep, technical analysis of local capacity, opportunities, and financial implications for adding curb-side pickup of recyclables.

This work was possible only because of several prior collaborations including, most recently, work on municipal energy efficiency opportunities with the City of Charlevoix also supported by the Community Foundation.

“For well over a decade, SEEDS has offered high quality, non-biased third-party, technical assistance to local units of government who want support for their green goals and initiatives.” – Sarna Salzman, SEEDS Executive Director

The SEEDS Energy & Environment team worked on this project with Resource Recycling Systems, a Michigan-based company out of Ann Arbor. Sarna added, “I’m very pleased to have discovered the excellent waste management data analysts at Resource Recycling Systems who helped us with this project and we look forward to working with them again.”