Empowering Communities with The NCS

The City of Cartersville, GA had a robust program in place for garbage collection and disposal. Since the mid-1970s, standard services such as curbside pick-up, large item pick-up, and dumpster services had been augmented by extras like bulk leaf vacuuming and grass clipping removal. The city had conducted a pilot recycling program in the late 1990s, but low participation and high costs made further implementation prohibitive. Although there was a rising sense that the city should provide recycling services, staff were concerned that recycling would require a rate increase that could upset customers and cause further difficulty.

In 2009, Cartersville added a question about recycling to its fourth administration of The National Citizen Survey. The survey revealed that 67{7d2d4cb14c544bbeb3cd4763dc2b1aa4e79f5bb51403ad6dac1e84ac9d980b0d} of residents were supportive of including recycling in the city’s waste disposal program, even if that change required an additional cost. Based on results from The National Citizen Survey, Cartersville decided the time was right to implement a recycling program, and set a goal to have the program in place by the beginning of 2012.

In February 2012, Cartersville successfully launched its first recycling program. Residents signing up to receive the service exceeded the city’s original estimate of 2,000 households. As a follow-up, the city included additional questions about the program in its 2013 administration of The National Citizen Survey. Quality of recycling services went from “much below” both the national and southeast United States benchmarks to “above” the benchmark in each area. 63{7d2d4cb14c544bbeb3cd4763dc2b1aa4e79f5bb51403ad6dac1e84ac9d980b0d} of Cartersville residents indicated that they had recycled at least once in the past twelve months.

Click the links below to see the City of Cartersville's own publication on the program, or view slides from the presentation made by Cartersville at the ICMA Conference in 2011. Cartersville stands as a great example of a community using data from The National Citizen Survey to improve the lives of residents in a tangible way.

http://www.cityofcartersville.org/DocumentCenter/Home/View/540

City of Cartersville, GA ICMA Fall 2011