Stamford, Connecticut, a city of approximately 130,000 residents, has had a single stream recycling program for nearly 10 years. Since the switch from a dual stream to a single stream system back in 2008, the city has been accepting a wide range of recyclables that include many foodservice packaging items.​

City staff currently collects residents’ 64 or 96-gallon carts and brings materials to city-owned local transfer station. The city also collects source separated residential recyclables at a drop-off recycling center. Stamford works hard to increase their recycling rate which currently sits at 32 percent as of 2015 (52 percent including yard waste), which is well above the Connecticut’s average recycling rate of about 24 percent.

Since the City’s switch to single stream recycling in 2008, the City’s Supervisor of Recycling and Sanitation reports the city has increased the quantity of collected materials from approximately 6,000 tons to over 12,000 tons in 2016. The supervisor also estimates that approximately 2-5 percent of the total recyclables collected as part of the current recycling stream are foodservice packaging items.

The City of Torrance, population 148,000, has long been ahead of the curve with curbside recycling and foodservice packaging recycling. In 1992, it began a city-wide commingled curbside program that included foodservice packaging items among an extensive list of recyclables. In educational materials (flyers, brochures) and on their website, Torrance is inclusive and specific about the foodservice packaging items that the program accepts.

Torrance services 29,500 single-family homes, and recycles about 10,000 tons per year. Both the material recovery facility (MRF) currently processing the city’s recyclables, as well as its former processor for more than 10 years, touted the cleanliness of Torrance’s commingled recyclables.They attributed it to the city’s robust education program.

With a population of nearly 700,000, Washington, D.C. is a compact and diverse city. From the top down, the District is committed to achieving zero waste by 2032. In October 2017, Washington, D.C. rolled out its unprecedented Zero Waste DC campaign, a complete face lift for recovery communications in the nation’s capital. A major component of the campaign was expanding the types of foodservice packaging accepted at the curbside through the Community Partnership program. Among the list of newly accepted materials are pizza boxes, takeout containers, plastic deli and bakery trays, paper cups and more.

The City of Palo Alto in California is home to approximately 67,000 residents and provides single stream recycling collection to the whole community (e.g., single-family residents, multi-family complexes, and commercial businesses, schools). The City switched to single-stream recycling from a multiple sort program in 2005. The same year, the City extended their sustainability commitments and adopted a city-wide goal of Zero Waste by 2021. To help achieve this goal, Palo Alto started a curbside compost collection program in 2009 for commercial businesses and in the same year expanded the recycling collection program to accept plastics and plastic foodservice packaging. In 2015, the residential curbside compost collection was expanded to include food scraps, compostable plastics, and soiled paper. The program has been seeing increasing quantities in both streams. The City’s diversion rate has risen from 63% in 2007 to 82% in 2016.

With a population of over 600,000, Louisville is the largest city in Kentucky. Leading by example, Louisville has a goal of diverting 90 percent of solid waste from the landfill by 2042. Launching the first FPI Community Partnership was the first step to stay on track to increase its diversion.

The city’s recycling processor was key in the decision to accept foodservice packaging and worked with the city to expand the list of materials accepted. In 2015, QRS Recycling collected nearly 23 million pounds of recyclables for the city; with the expanded list of what is accepted and a strategic education campaign in the city’s program, Louisville eyes that 90 percent diversion goal.

Chattanooga, Tennessee, a city of approximately 178,000, has had a single stream recycling program for nearly 13 years. With a focus on providing every household with a curbside recycling container by 2022, the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW) looked at ways of expanding its recycling program with a focus on communicating and educating their residents. The DPW saw the Community Partnership program as a great opportunity to not only expand its recycling program but to have a large communication campaign to refresh its educational materials and give residents updated information on recycling. In fall 2017, after a year of planning alongside FPI, Chattanooga was announced as the very first city selected for FPI’s Community Partnership program.