What do Columbus, Ohio; Eugene, Oregon; and Beloit, Wisconsin, all have in common? The three cities were recently named Green City Award winners during the 2013 Residential Recycling Conference held in Chicago, Illinois.

The awards are designed to honor cities and towns of all sizes for developing recycling programs that achieve high waste diversion rates, community involvement and educational efforts. While over sixty municipalities were nominated from throughout the United States,only three could be winners!

For the large community group, Columbus was the winner thanks to their committed community outreach program, where as a result, recycling participation is at ninety eight percent.

Eugene took top honors in the medium community category for most improved efforts in increasing their city’s recycling rate to sixty one percent through an innovative food and organic waste recycling campaign.

Beloit, was the winner for small municipalities which had attained a recycling rate of forty one percent through community clean-up projects and educational programming in local schools.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Who doesn’t like to receive an award or acknowledgement for a job well done? Here’s an important tip to keep up the recycling and waste diversion habit at your business or workplace: keep it fun and reward people for doing a good job! Which division diverted the most waste? Who is your most eco-aware employee? Who has cut their waste disposal costs the most? Thank your highest flyers and they’ll continue to do more and motivate others.

Winners of the Green City Awards were determined by voting from the attendees at the RRC.