“RECYCLE FIRST. TRASH LAST.” CAMPAIGN KEY MESSAGES
This internal messaging document is meant to serve as your guide for crafting responses to the public.
Use these key messages often in your communications to residents and other external stakeholders. By repeating these messages in all of your communications, you will help create lasting and consistent reminders of the campaign and for residents to recycle.
Call-to-Action: Recycle first and trash last. A lot of items are recyclable that you use throughout your entire house. Visit RecycleFirstTrashLast.org to learn all the things that you can recycle.
Supporting Points:
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Lake County’s new recycling campaign, places the priority on recycling first, defining what’s left as trash, encouraging residents to view recyclable materials as valuable resources and making the act of reclaiming them a proactive daily habit.
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To embrace the idea that trash is recycling’s leftovers, we all must transition our mindset of pulling recyclables out of the trash to, ideally, pulling the trash out of the recycling.
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While many Lake County residents already do a fairly good job of recycling, we can all do better.
Learn about all the things that can be recycled and recycle first in every room of the house to make sure we’re recycling everything we possibly can.
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Visit www.RecycleFirstTrashLast.org
to learn more about curbside recycling in Lake County.
Program Basics: Lake County makes recycling easy and convenient – and requires no sorting.
Supporting Points:

Lake County residents have access to single-stream recycling, which means no sorting of recyclables is necessary. Everything can be placed in the same container with no guessing games.
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Residents can recycle a lot of different items here in Lake County. For a full list of what can and cannot be recycled in Lake County, visit www.RecycleFirstTrashLast.org
and click on the
Recycling Basics link to access the full recycling guidelines.
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For details on collection schedules and recycling containers in your neighborhood, visit www.RecycleFirstTrashLast.org
Recycling Benefits: Recycling is more important than ever and makes a local difference.
Supporting Points:
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One person, or family, really can make a difference! o Recycling really is the easiest way to help the environment. No hybrid or light bulb purchase required! o By participating in your community’s recycling program and recycling all that you can, you are making a real impact, while helping to preserve the environment. o Every ton of garbage we throw out fills up three cubic yards of landfill space.

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 Last year, we threw away enough residential trash to fill up 561,777 cubic yards of landfill space. That’s enough trash to fill a football stadium three feet high nearly 50 times over! o Every ton of paper you recycle can save 17 trees.
We can all make a difference by recycling more and wasting less. o There are 230,000 households in Lake County that can participate in curbside recycling. If each household does their part, those numbers can add up fast!
The Campaign: SWALCO is launching a new education campaign, “Recycle First.
Trash Last.” to help residents understand what to recycle and encourage them to recycle items from all rooms in their house.
Supporting Points:

While most Lake County residents already do a fairly good job recycling, we can all recycle more.
This new campaign encourages residents to learn everything that can be recycled via their curbside program and to recycle from all rooms of the house.
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The campaign will simplify the guidelines for recycling plastics and encourage the recycling of large rigid plastics by residents.
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The campaign shifts the priority from throwing items in the trash to instead recycling first and visualizing what’s leftover as trash.
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The campaign will appear all over Lake County, from the sides of buses, on the radio, online and at community events, ensuring that residents everywhere are reminded to recycle first.
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The campaign payoff is the URL, www.RecycleFirstTrashLast.org
, which is included on all campaign materials, driving residents to a page where they can learn more about how to recycle in Lake County.
CVP Partnership: The Solid Waste Agency of Lake County has been selected by the Curbside Value Partnership, a national invitation-only program designed to increase recycling, to participate in a strategic, region-wide recycling education
campaign.
Supporting messages:
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SWALCO was hand-selected by CVP as a partner and together developed the Recycle First Trash
Last campaign that could become a model for other communities.

SWALCO’S partnership with CVP is an example of a waste management authority doing a lot with a little through a strategic partnership.
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The campaign developed for SWALCO will be available for use in all 41 of its member communities that provide curbside recycling programs.