FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:    Margie Byers, Lee County Solid Waste Division
                (941) 479-8181

FORT MYERS, Fla. (December 7, 2000) –The Recyclable $500 Play-off, formerly called Mission Recycle, now includes citizens of the city of Fort Myers, and apartment and condominium residents too. The Mission Recycle Challenge, created in November 1999 by Lee County’s Solid Waste Division, had 29 winners and has been available to residents of Cape Coral, Fort Myers Beach, Bonita Springs and unincorporated Lee County.

The Recyclable $500 Play-off is basically the same program as Mission Recycle with more eligible participants. Each month recycling containers in the participating areas are randomly selected. The first household or complex in the randomly selected area that has recycled properly, based on the contents in the containers, is given $500. The $500 will be given to the management of the complex, or to the resident of the single family home.

With the Recyclable $500 Play-off, four winners are selected each month, rotating equally between complexes and single family homes. To win, recyclable items should be rinsed, lids removed and the paper items, including magazines, should be placed in a brown paper bag. Magazines and corrugated cardboard are recyclable as well! Place the magazines with the newspapers, and the corrugated cardboard should be flattened and placed under the recycling bin. Plastic bags in the containers will disqualify participants from winning.

Lee County’s recycling program is ranked No. 1 in the state, recently surpassing all other Florida counties for adjusted recycling volume. To that end, the county began construction in August of a new, 60,000-square-foot Materials Recovery Facility that will process approximately 400 tons of recyclables per 16-hour day. The $7-million plant, being built next to the county’s Waste-To-Energy Facility, is scheduled for completion in November 2001. For more information visit http://www.lee-county.com/solidwaste.