Every spring, Metro Waste Authority recognizes businesses, institutions and individuals for the positive environmental impacts they have on our communities. The Annual Dinner is a time for Metro Waste Authority and attendees to honor those who
constantly work to take care of central Iowa's environment. And it's a time for us to acknowledge and be inspired by the energy, determination and creativity of our environmental stewards. Please help us celebrate our recent winners by reading more about their contributions below.
2009 Winners
City of Ankeny
The Ankeny city council is consistently adopting principles of environmental sustainability into the foundations of the community. In 2007, Ankeny received the Environmental Stewardship Award from MWA because of the core principles from sustainable development, watershed management, economic development initiatives, public education campaigns and waste reduction practices. This year, the "Be Green – Go Red" campaign made them the recipient for the award due to their continued efforts towards sustainability. After initial research on bottled water, the city learned that approximately 38 billion water bottles become landfill waste each year. From that and other information, Ankeny launched the new campaign encouraging employees and residents to use local tap water instead of bottled water. Reusable bottles were placed on sale and were sold out within the first two weeks of the campaign. In addition cities from Arizona and Oregon were calling Ankeny and wanted to place an order for the bottles and wanted information about the program. Through this new initiative, the city has been able to have an ongoing conversation with residents and businesses about promoting sound environmental practices. The city of Ankeny understands that they are in a unique position to communicate important environmental messages and they are taking advantage of educating and promoting to their large audience.
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Thomas J. Downs
Thomas J. Downs is the Superintendent for the Southeast Polk Community School District. Through his leadership and position with the operations at the schools, he has realized that the schools have a large environmental footprint. The state of green practices in the district now has a different, more positive tone, due to his leadership. While originally the goal for environmental programs was to cut district spending, there is now a larger realization about the positive environmental impact that the district can achieve. Mr. Downs has encourage the district to be more aware of the environmental effects of cleaning products, costs of traditional construction practices and land use in a growing school district, the impact of schools ill-equipped to provide green space and exercise land stewardship through conservation and nurturing practices, and the consequences of lacking of science programs that help students to become environmentally-conscious graduates who spend lifetimes living and leading "greener" lives. Mr. Downs pushed for the South East Polk Field Lab to be made possible in its early stages; now making it a learning opportunity for students in the district to have a hands-on education approach in regards to the environment. It is because of Mr. Downs" love of nature, environmentally conscious mindset and expertise in the area of conservation and preservation, and a constant district conversation about green concepts; that the green district can be achieved.
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Citi Cards Transaction Services
Citi, located in Urbandale, operates in a 205,000 square foot facility that processes nearly 12 million credit card payments monthly and prints statements for more than 320 million account holders annually; resulting in a large environmental impact. Citi has realized their impact and is taking great strides to reduce their impact. In 2008 the Citi Urbandale site processed a total of 2,155 tons of recycled white paper, cardboard and plastics, representing a 50% increase in recyclable volumes from 2007. Citi"s 2008 recycling effort saved approximately 36,406 trees, 14,990,882 gallons of water, 128,493 pounds of air pollution, 8,780,373 kilo-watt hours of electricity and 7,067 cubic yards of landfill space through their efforts. In other initiatives, Citi is working with IT equipment manufacturers to achieve greater heating and cooling efficiency, purchases significant amounts of green power and has announced the goal of reducing our global emissions by 10% from our 2005 level by the year 2011. As part of its commitment to address global climate change, Citi announced in May 2008 that it is the first company to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) pre-certification for a retail commercial interior prototype through a pilot U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) program. Citi strongly believes that sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the present generation without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The SDI program is Citi"s commitment to protect the environment through reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and supports Citi"s belief in the need for alternative sources of energy and a focus on sustainable development. Citi"s objective is to make private equity investments in the sectors such as renewable energy (wind, solar, bio-fuels, hydro, geothermal etc), sustainable forestry, waste management, water management, clean technologies, energy efficiency and carbon credit markets.
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Lakeview Surgery Center
The staff at Lakeview Surgery Center became acutely aware of the environmental impact produced by their facility. Since the realization of their impact, they have started to concentrate on waste reduction and efficiency. The green team at Lakeview Surgery Center has implemented a multitude of ideas to help become an environmentally friendly facility: automatic sensors on sinks and faucets recycle ink cartridges, energy efficient thermostat control, shutting down large equipment when not in use, proper disposal of compact fluorescent light bulbs, recycling paper, donating outdated supplies to those who can reuse them as well as donating gently used recliners/patient beds to nursing homes, switching to digital X-ray technology which eliminates the use of 20 gallons of chemicals and 400 gallons of water each year, using reusable cups instead of Styrofoam, and composting coffee grounds with participating staff members. Lakeview Surgery Center has started out strong in implementing new environmental programs throughout the building, the center already has goals for the next year which include no longer using plastic bags by replacing them with a reusable bag and transitioning to a concentrated biodegradable enzymatic solution for the instrument washer. The green team also educates staff, physicians and customers about the importance of what is being done at the facility and they hope that this will provide them with information to incorporate these choices into their daily lives. Lakeview Surgery Center has realized that even the smallest of changes at the facility has the potential to make a huge impact.
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