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.
To learn more about the 2010 Environmental Stewardship Winners click here.
2008 Winners
ARAMARK Healthcare Management Services
This hospital linen processing plant was put together with the environment in mind. During the construction of the plant, the founders chose equipment based on energy efficiency that reduced gas consumption. In fact, gas usage is approximately half of the industry average. Washers are well below industry standards for water consumption using only one gallon per pound of linen versus three gallons used in conventional laundries. This equates to saving more than 30 million gallons of water each year! And the company took it even further. They set up the waste water system to operate on a 30 percent gravity flow, which lowers electricity use by 30,000 watts each year. They are installing T8 fluorescent fixtures which use half the electricity to produce light. They even considered how to reduce paper in recordkeeping. For instance, the maintenance department completes all work orders on hand held computers to reduce the amount of paper used in this process by two thirds.
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Sigler Companies
Green policies are part of every day business at this printing company. They have been nationally recognized for responsible forest use, management and sustainability in their use of environmentally friendly papers, as well as inks and chemicals in the printing process. Their efforts to recycle, reduce and reuse materials in their printing processes has saved more than 15,000 trees, six million gallons of water, 50,000 pounds of air pollution, 3.5 million kW hours of electricity, and 2,913 cubic yards of landfill space. This company also uses the latest printing processes, equipment, and technology that save plates, paper and ink. Sigler Companies' employees are so inspired by the company's commitment to the environment that they have taken it upon themselves to from a Green Committee whose sole purpose is "to initiate green practices throughout the company."
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Robert G. Riley
Bob Riley has been involved in agriculture for more than 30 years but has had an environmental mindset all his life. It has always been his view that agriculture and environmental interests should and could be fully integrated. From his first attempt 30 years ago to integrate wetlands into a process water treatment system in order to capture nutrients, to his efforts in capturing waste heat from a manufacturing operation and use it in a greenhouse, and his recent involvement with Water for Iowans, Riley has been integrating environmental concerns into his life at every turn. At IaAgState, he has supported performance-based agricultural practices that are environmentally sustainable. As a member of the Iowa Environmental Council since 2002, he has been a proponent of bringing agricultural representatives into the decision making process so that the divide between agricultural and environmental interests can be bridged. At the Whiterock Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy, two other organizations with which Riley has board involvement, science is used to provide the rationale and effective action for environmentally sustainable remediation and agricultural activity. On a local but connected front, Riley's work on the Des Moines Water Works Board of Trustees, and the Mayor's Energy and Environmental Task Force, bind water quality concerns and the energy use together, and demonstrate the need for citizen awareness, coordinated organizational efforts, and local, on the ground, individual action.
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Honorable Donovan Olson
Representative Olson from Boone County is Chair of the Iowa House Environmental Protection Committee. But before his life as a State Representative, Donovan served for six years a Boone County supervisor. There, he worked with the landfills and saw the power to protect the environment through solid waste management. But he also saw how legislation from the 1980s was holding it back. Fast forward several years to 2008—Representative Olson now has a chance to remove the legislative barriers. Working with representatives from the solid waste management industry and the Department of Natural Resources, he introduced groundbreaking legislation that will challenge and recognize all solid waste planning areas not just for their efforts in reducing waste but for their overall environmental performance. MWA and other planning areas across the state are very excited about this legislation. Finally, all the efforts made to protect the environment will be taken into consideration in evaluating planning area performance. Planning areas will be recognized for efforts in arranging for recycling, household hazardous waste and yard waste management programs, for converting methane gas to energy, and for water quality improvement efforts. Because of Representative Olson's vision and commitment to change, this legislation has unanimously passed both the House and Senate. Now, it awaits Governor Culver's signature. Let's hope the Governor agrees with Representative Olson's vision—it is time to define the next generation's environmentally sound approaches to solid waste management.
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