MES WINS
THREE NATIONAL AWARDS FOR RECYCLING AND SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
Click here for a listing of more awards!

Annapolis, MD –Within a 30-day span, Maryland Environmental Service (MES) was the recipient of three national awards for its unique recycling program and its management of a regional solid waste facility.

In September, the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) recognized MES as the winner of its Outstanding Market Development Award for 1999. The recycling award was presented during the NRC’s 3-day conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. MES shared the award spotlight with three of its recycling clients, Baltimore, Harford and Montgomery Counties.

In October, the Agency won two additional awards from the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) www.swana-midatl.org . MES won the Gold Award for Planning and Financial Management and was co-recipient in the Gold Award for Recycling Excellence. MES shared the Recycling Award with the Hampton, Virginia Department of Public Works. The prestigious awards were presented during SWANA’s 1999 Municipal Solid Waste Management conference held in Reno, Nevada. Eligible applicants for SWANA awards include participants from Canada, the United States and Mexico.

James W. Peck, Director of the Maryland Environmental Service (MES), said "I am proud of the Agency in general for these outstanding honors. So many people are involved in the success of the operations mentioned that we have to consider the awards as Agency-wide accomplishments. There are others who deserve special credit and I want to thank them for their dedication and the superior effort which enabled MES to win these awards."

Mr. Peck said a SWANA official approached him in Reno and revealed that MES could be the first recipient to win two of the organization’s Gold Awards in the same year. "This is a tribute to our Agency, our clients and the State of Maryland," Mr. Peck said.

The NRC and SWANA recycling honors pay tribute to MES’s aggressive marketing and buy recycled program. NRC documents stated that MES, in cooperation with Baltimore, Harford and Montgomery Counties, was selected "because they were developing markets for a wide variety of materials and worked on prices, focused on buy recycled, and provided extensive training."

SWANA’s reasons for selecting MES stated that "MES has a comprehensive program for processing recyclables, marketing them as raw materials for manufacturing new products and establishing development programs. MES has established a marketing program for recyclables that emphasizes trailer load quantities, high quality and competition among vendors to provide the best pricing to its clients."

In announcing the Planning and Financial Management award, SWANA officials stated that the honor goes to MES’s Midshore Regional Solid Waste Facility. Midshore is "a unique four-county regional solid waste facility that has weathered the loss of a major customer, yet ca me out stronger financially due to innovative facility design revisions, refinancing, and the development of an unusual public-private waste transfer arrangement."

The statement concluded that MES’s "sensible planning and financial management has maintained the Midshore project as a viable operation" despite considerable obstacles.