About three months ago, we instituted one of the largest changes to sanitation collection in the City in over 50 years: ONE PLUS ONE.  Not only did we go to once a week trash collection and once a week recycling, we changed trash collection routes and instituted a new work week that eliminated Monday pick-ups.  We launched a public awareness campaign to reach out to our citizens.  We challenged citizens who had never recycled to start.  Now the results are in and they are dramatic.
 
Recycling in Baltimore City is up 53%!  Our stated goal was to realize a 50% increase in recycling in the first year. We achieved that goal in just three months!  Before ONE PLUS ONE, we were collecting an average of 585 tons every two weeks and now that has increased to 1,000 tons!
   
Not only has recycling increased, but trash tonnage (non-recyclables) is going down also.  We are now collecting an average of 3,300 tons a week versus an average of 4,000 tons before ONE PLUS ONE. 
 
We promised you, the citizens, that ONE PLUS ONE would give us the ability to aggressively tackle dirty alleys. It has. We have eliminated the backlog in dirty alley requests and are now responding to 311 calls as soon as they come in.  We are proactively searching out dirty alleys and cleaning them up instead of waiting for citizens to call them in!  Currently, 60 percent of our alley requests are generated by our crews, supervisors and management staff.

 

These successes are just the beginning of a great story of Baltimore citizens cleaning their neighborhoods, greening their communities and taking pride in where they live and work. 

You have helped us reach these milestones. Great examples are the three finalists of the 2009 AFRO Clean Block of the Year Award.  The overall winner was the 1200 Block of Whatcoat Street and other finalists included the 700 Block of East 30th Street and the 2400 Block of Etting Street.  These are individuals and groups of people -- ordinary citizens -- who stepped up to the challenge to clean, green, unify and beautify their block.  The work of these communities is nothing short of inspiring.

We still have much more to do but these achievements show what we can do when we all work together.  Thanks to all those residents who had faith in what we set out to accomplish and have helped us get this far!  We are yet another step closer to a Cleaner, Greener, Baltimore.