City of Guelph – Give Waste a New Life

Awards

  • Gold Excellence Award from the Solid Waste Association of North America.
  • Gold Award from the Recycling Council of Ontario.
  • Silver Promotion and Education Award from the Municipal Waste Association.
  • Pinnacle Award from CPRS Hamilton.

 

  • Designed the “Give Waste a New Life” Logo.
  • Designed Booklets, Brochures, Sorting Guides, Information Kits including Stickers, and Ads for newspapers and online.
  • Designed Truck Wraps and Transit Shelters.
  • Created Automation Roll-out Maps.
  • Created Children’s Activity Books.

The City of Guelph was taking two very big steps forward in its quest to divert more waste from the landfill. The first was the opening of a new organics processing facility that would turn household kitchen scraps into valuable compost. The second was the introduction of recycling and garbage carts to replace the current bag system, and a fleet of automated collection vehicles that would greatly enhance the efficiency of the curbside collection process.

To assist the City of Guelph in communicating these changes to it’s 120,000 residents, while at Pier 8 Group, I designed the “Give Waste a New Life” butterfly logo featuring green cart items on one side and blue box recycling items on the other side, with the butterfly symbolizing the metamorphosis of waste into new items “giving the waste a new life”.

Using direct mail, newspaper ads, transit shelter posters, and door knockers, I helped residents to learn how to sort and prepare their waste to maximize diversion and ensure a smooth transition to the new collection system.

The campaign to educate residents on the new waste sorting rules resulted in an increase in sorting compliance, while the awareness campaign promoting automated collection resulted in 99% of households using their carts on their first regularly scheduled collection day. The City also experienced a big rise in waste diversion. In 2012, Guelph topped 400 other Ontario municipalities, with an overall residential diversion rate of 67.7%.

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