Date:

June 2, 2004

For More Information Contact:

Diane Gonzolas, Citizen Information Center, 441-7831

Kristi Wamstad-Evans, Recycling Specialist, 441-8215

Mayor Coleen J. Seng will present awards for “Clean Your Files Week” at 2 p.m. TODAY in the Mayor’s Conference Room, second floor of the County-City Building 555 South 10th Street. The City Recycling Office said 44 offices and schools participated in the nation-wide event April 19th through 23rd that encourages employees and others to recycle office paper.

"There are three things that make this program valuable and worthwhile: the high value of office and copier paper, the environmental benefits and the savings to our landfill," said Mayor Seng. "We hope that businesses that participate in ‘Clean Your Files Week’ will recycle year-round."

The Recycling Office said this year’s participants recycled more than 62,000 pounds of paper during the week. That represents an environmental savings of 531 trees, 94 cubic yards of landfill space, two Olympic-size pool worth of water or the energy needed to power the County-City Government Center for a week. The recycling effort also conserved more than 12,000 gallons of oil, enough oil to circumnavigate the Earth about 1.5 times.

Mayor Seng herself helped the Mayor’s Office and Citizen Information Center earn the top honor in per capita paper recycling for City offices by recycling 40 pounds of paper per employee. The Mayor recycled more than 40 percent of the 475 pounds of paper they recycled.

Other award will be presented to:

• Irving Middle School in the schools category. Students there collected more than 1,000 pounds of paper or about 1.5 pounds of paper per student.
• K & K Paint Supply in the private business category. Workers there collected 147 pounds of paper per employee.
• Ameritas Life Insurance Corporation, which collected the largest amount of paper of any organization participating in the event. Ameritas collected about 26,500 pounds of paper.

Clean Your Files Week is organized by Recycling at Work, a campaign of the National Office Paper Recycling Project, a public-private partnership managed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, with the help of Clean Your Files national sponsors. Local sponsors include the City of Lincoln, Midland Recycling, the Lincoln Public Schools and WasteCap of Lincoln.