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Contact: Carol Dahmen
Mark Oldfield
Don Drysdale
Ed Wilson
(916) 323-1886 |
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Sacramento – The Department of
Conservation’s beverage container
recycling outreach campaign, featuring
the tagline "Recycle. It's Good for the
Bottle. It's Good for the Can.", won two
top honors at the State Information
Officers Council annual awards
competition.
The State Information Officers Council
awarded the DOC’s recycling campaign the
Gold Award (first place) for the best
media campaign of any state agency and
the grand prize for media relations in
general. The awards were presented April
11.
SIOC is a non-profit organization that
meets to discuss trends and developments
in the field of government public
information. The annual awards
competition’s goal is to identify
excellent communication efforts among
state agencies and to further encourage
the production of quality work.
"The recycling campaign plays a very
important role in encouraging and
educating Californians about beverage
container recycling," said Carol Dahmen,
California Department of Conservation
communications director. "Being
recognized by your peers with the grand
prize is a great honor."
The campaign, which utilizes television,
print and radio advertisements, as well
as billboards and a Web site (www.bottlesandcans.com),
was launched in May 2001. The campaign
was developed in response to a drastic
decline in California’s beverage
container recycling rate. In 2000, the
recycling rate dropped to 61 percent as
more than six billion containers were
thrown away instead of being recycled,
according to figures reported by the
California Department of Conservation.
Designed to motivate Californians to
recycle beverage containers, the
television commercials feature recently
emptied plastic, glass and aluminum
containers longing for a "new life."
Television spots featuring a
trash-talking can who is reborn as a
softball bat and an unloved plastic
bottle who is reincarnated as a
flotation device for a beautiful
lifeguard are perhaps the best known
components of the campaign. The radio
spots and print ads follow a similar
premise.
The $10 million campaign also includes a
component that allows the DOC to assist
local jurisdictions with their recycling
outreach. A "campaign in a binder"
includes the TV and radio spots, bumper
stickers, and posters. The binder is
available to local recycling
coordinators free of charge, allowing
them to extend the reach of the
recycling message in their communities.
California is one of 10 states with a
beverage container recycling program.
The Department of Conservation
administers the California Beverage
Container Recycling and Litter Reduction
Act, which became law in 1986. The
primary goal of the act is to achieve
and maintain high recycling rates for
each beverage container type included in
the program.
Consumers pay CRV (California Refund
Value) when they purchase beverages from
a retailer. The deposits are refunded
when empty containers are redeemed
through local recycling centers. All
aspects of the state’s program,
including the outreach campaign, are
funded through money left over from
unredeemed beverage containers. More
information on the state's beverage
container recycling program is available
at
www.bottlesandcans.com, or by
calling 1-800-RECYCLE.
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