Fairfax, Vermont Named Educator Of The Year
Casella Waste Systems, Inc. is pleased to announce that the town of Fairfax, Vermont was recently honored for their leadership in sustainability at the inaugural Casella Sustainability Leadership Award Ceremony.
Fairfax was honored as the 2020 Educator of the Year for creating robust markets for implementing educational campaigns to engage their communities, customers, employees, and/or students in good recycling and food waste programs.
“It gives us a sense of great pride to honor the entire Fairfax team for their leadership and outstanding work in advancing sustainability,” said John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO. “We hope that by bringing attention to their efforts, others will be inspired by their passion, commitment, and success.”
Fairfax was among 30 Casella customers, including municipalities, colleges and universities, industrial manufacturers, food and beverage producers, and others nominated for their efforts. Winners were chosen by a panel of Casella executives and sustainability experts, including True Zero Waste Advisors, who evaluated each nominee on several criteria.
“I want to extend our thanks to our local Casella team that's been so instrumental in helping us in making this possible,” said Brad Docheff, Fairfax Town Manager. “The town has had a very productive relationship with Casella over the years, and we're really excited to be partnering in efforts to help educate folks about the role of our stakeholders and the bigger picture of sustainability and all the efforts around it. I really want to credit our select board for seeing that one of the key elements in the bigger mission of sustainability is the impact that each person can have with their own behavior at home, and for taking the initiative to lead the community with the introduction of curbside food waste pickup and the new Fairfax Recycles app that Casella brought to us. We’ve been blown away by the participation, the ability to have direct interaction between service providers and the community, and the data regarding the tonnage diverted from the landfill.”
Fairfax has focused on modern outreach and education, enabled by the launch of an innovative waste and recycling app - powered by Recollect - to give residents immediate access to their collection schedule and a searchable tool to advance recycling and compost education. As of December, 409 people had installed the app and over 5,600 items had been searched across 5,000 households. The Town Manager has supported this success through savvy use of social media and by bringing Casella in to speak with residents to complement these efforts.
“We’ve spent more than 45 years working towards a more sustainable future, and as we strive to help our customers reach their sustainability goals it is an honor to recognize their collective efforts. The customers and communities we have the privilege of serving are leading the way and inspiring others to live and work more sustainability and that continues to be the most rewarding part of our work,” Casella said.
View all of the 2020 Casella Sustainable Leadership Award Winners