Omaha joins Curbside Value Partnership.

Omaha, Neb., has joined the Aluminum Can Council's (ACC) Curbside Value Partnership (OVP). Beginning this summer, the city's public works staff and the ACC will begin a citywide campaign to educate residents about the benefits of curbside recycling.

"We have three central goals for this partnership," Steve Thompson, director of recycling initiatives for the ACC, says. "We want to increase participation in curbside recycling throughout the city, we want to see more bins on the street and we want to see residents more diligently recycling the valuable portion of what goes in that bin, including aluminum cans and newspaper. We know the residents of Omaha will respond."

Omaha is the 19th city to join the CVP, an invitation-only program where the aluminum industry and its funding members, including Alcoa, Anheuser-Busch Metal Container, ARCO, Ball, Novelis and REXAM, work with individual municipalities to help increase their recycling rates through education and detailed evaluations.

Omaha was selected for the partnership because of its strong environmental track record and its recent switch to single-stream recycling, according to a press release from the CVP.

The partnership will involve a citywide communications campaign to residents with an added focus on a few target communities who have been identified as receptive to recycling but slower to take part. Additionally, the ACC will provide public relations support and marketing and logistics resources to the city to help disseminate messages and measure their effectiveness.

The national CVP program was developed two years ago by the Aluminum Can Council, a joint effort of the Aluminum Association and the Can Manufacturers Institute, to help reverse declining recycling rates. CVP partner communities include Kansas City, Mo.; Brevard County, Fla.; Indian River, Fla.; Denver; Orlando, Fla.; and Dallas.

More information on the Curbside Value Partnership is at www.Recycle Curbside.org.