East Central Iowa Council of Governments
Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Recycling and Solid Waste Program Evaluation

DSM conducted a year long evaluation for ECICOG of recycling and solid waste programs in a six county area including Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. This included an evaluation of urban and rural curbside and drop-off recycling collection systems, total system costs, recovery rates and customer satisfaction. As part of this evaluation, DSM carried out set-out, participation and capture rate studies over several seasons to compare recycling collection systems and the recovery rates of materials across different systems (single stream, two stream commingled, source separated) and across different types of pay-as-you-throw programs.

DSM also conducted a series of focus group meetings in urban areas and rural towns to better gauge citizen satisfaction with the current system and to gain citizen participation in improving solid waste management in the region. Finally DSM collected detailed cost information and performed a cost analysis across the different systems and case study communities.

The results were presented in two formats. A formal presentation was given by DSM to all communities participating in the study. Then DSM designed and led an all-day training workshop in Des Moines, so other municipalities and solid waste program managers could learn how to evaluate their programs and use the results to benchmark their programs.

Back to Clients