This agreement provides funding from the infrastructure investment and jobs act (IIJA)

This $2,000,000 Project Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Reduce, Reuse, Recycling Education and Outreach (CFDA 66.921) program will fund a comprehensive recycling outreach and education campaign led by the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus in Northeastern Illinois. The three-year initiative aims to increase waste prevention activities, boost recycling participation rates, and reduce contamination in the recycling stream across 275 municipalities and 7 counties. Key activities include developing a regional brand and messaging, launching digital outreach, and conducting community engagement. Sub-awards to county governments and solid waste agencies will support localized outreach, feedback collection, and data monitoring to track progress. This grant will leverage regional expertise and partnerships to effectively educate and engage residents on proper recycling techniques, composting, and sustainable materials management.

EPA's consumer recycling education and outreach (REO) grant program will fund a range of projects that will increase waste prevention activities, increase the collection of recyclable materials and program participation rates, and decrease contamination of the recycling stream, fund projects that focus on commonly recycled materials such as municipal solid waste (e.g., plastics, aluminum, paper, glass, etc.), including food waste and organics, and/or fund projects and provide tools and technical assistance that will lead to long-term, sustained change, benefits, and support beyond the life of the grant. The purpose of this award is to enhance the metropolitan mayors caucus' efforts to meet the REO grants elements. Specifically, the metropolitan mayors caucus will lead a broadly collaborative recycling outreach and education campaign for northeastern illinois to serve 275 municipalities and 7 counties. The campaign will leverage expertise and knowledge of solid waste agencies, counties, and recycling organizations to effectively educate and engage residents to increase collection and reduce contamination in the recycled materials stream. Activities:the activities to be performed are: 1. Engage project advisory committee to oversee brand development and campaign implementation including but not limited to representatives of the county governments, and solid waste management districts that have provided letters of support. 2. Engage contractor assistance to develop baseline recycling and contamination rates 3. Engage MMC environment committee community leaders around REO needs 4. Hire and annually train an outreach manager to work across the region 5. Develop and release RFP for comprehensive marketing services 6. Assess proposals and select marketing contractor 7. Draft potential brand logos, taglines/short-form messaging 8. Solicit community feedback on drafts 9. Finalize brand logo and taglines 10. Deploy outreach coordinator to community events 11. Develop longer-form messaging to appear on regional/project website 12. Design website with access to downloads of social media messages, explanations for products that cause confusion that offer alternative reuse and composting when applicable 13. Prepare branded assets for various ad formats (billboards, transit, social media ad buys, cart tags, movie theater pre-shows, church bulletins and publications in other languages ) 14. Launch website and begin ADS 15. Run ADS 16. Solicit/synthesize public feedback from around the region 17. Monitor and report key data metrics, including recycling rates and contamination subrecipient:subawards to the following entities and their respective actions: dupage county: focus multi-lingual outreach in low performing communities in partnership with local non-profits. Support use of cart-stickers will county: distribute collaboratively produced materials to targeted local partners and 37 municipalities targeting disadvantaged communities. Solid waste agency northern cook county: perform localized outreach to an individual and small group level utilizing the collaborative produced materials in addition to direct feedback on cart contents and mentor program. Solid waste agency of lake county: outreach targeting disadvantaged census tracts and drive traffic to website to enhance community knowledge of what is recyclable. Mchenry county: education focused on commercial and multifamily entities and low participation areas. Kane county: perform localized outreach to residents with a focus on low performing communities and disadvantaged census tracts; will provide direct feedback to residents and conduct multifamily outreach. Outcomes:the anticipated deliverables include 1) outreach campaigns and projects implemented (number of feedback responses received during brand development, number of website visits a