Ten Johnson County businesses and schools are being recognized for their ongoing or new "green" initiatives. Applicants were asked to describe their company's efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle and demonstrate their success. The County's Solid Waste Committee recognizes these winning companies and their awards are classified as Bronze, Gold or Emerald*. Click on their names to view the green initiatives.
EMERALD Level Winning Companies:
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Farmers Insurance HelpPoint – refreshed 368 desktop computers that
were returned to the vendor and returned to service elsewhere.
Additionally, they sent 24 broken computer items to an EPA approved
disposal service. -
Shawnee Mission Medical Center – during 2010, the Green Team identified the top 5 waste streams and set goals for improvement. The Green Team along with the entire associate population and leadership has committed to increasing recycling programs communication of “green” efforts, encouragement of green purchasing, and waste tracking activities.
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ITW Dymon – currently collects an average of 100 tons of recyclable material each year. They are working to consume less in their processes and working with vendors to review how packing materials, catalogs, and other materials can be removed from the waste and recycling streams.
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ITW Labels - went from a facility that did no recycling to a manufacturing facility that is zero solid waste to landfill. By designing an innovative recycling program that includes 20 different waste streams they went from sending 30 tons each month to the landfill to zero over a nine (9) month period.
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LaserCycle, Inc. – started a program where trash cans were removed from individual cubical and offices and set up central locations for trash collection. Providing greater awareness of sorting materials into recycling and residual trash.
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Tomahawk Elementary – has fully integrated their “Green” programs into the school; changing the concept of conservation and environment education from just something we “did” to truly being a part of their everyday culture. The result has been greater participation in the school’s afterschool environmentally focused HiP team.
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Brookwood Elementary – implemented a composting program for all food, paper napkin, paper plate, and milk carton waste with Missouri Organic, a local commercial composting company. This program reduced lunch waste from eight (8) bags each day to less than one (1) bag.
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Briarwood Elementary – performed a Recycling Rodeo for all the students. The rodeo included each classroom collecting, measuring and graphing paper and mixed recycling daily for five weeks. Updates were placed in the Briarwood Brief to keep students and parents informed.
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Bluejacket Flint Elementary – has a very active Green Team of volunteers from 4th, 5th and 6th Grades that coordinate the school’s recycling programs as well as other conservation programs.
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WaterOne – Implemented the GreenDriver® program for their vehicle fleet. This program focuses on reduction of mobile source CO2 emissions, fuel costs, and increase MPG for the fleet through driver education and behavior management.
All applicants were asked to fill out a survey including the categories of waste reduction, reuse and recycling, outreach and education and policies, earning them points toward the varying levels of awards. They also had to submit a one page written summary of their efforts. Finally, the applicants had to submit metrics that showed they tracked their waste reduction efforts.
Awardees were formally recognized by the Solid Waste Management Committee at the Board of County Commissioners meeting on Thursday, June 9th at 9:30 am.
*This annual award is a self-nominating and non-competitive. Applications are due January 31st of each year. Please contact Craig Wood for more information: 913-715-6917.