Allison Walker, Your Home

Brevard County beats out every other county in the entire United States for its recycling efforts, according to the American Forest & Paper Association.

Brevard County collected enough paper for recycling per capita last year to make it into the top 10 counties in Florida.
    
But the county got the national honor of the "2008 Community Recycling Award " because of the way it's trying to influence people living there.

One way they get results is updating the web site www.brevardrecycles.org, which includes an online "Recyclopedia" to answer your questions about curbside and drop-off recycling.
   
The Paper Industry also likes Brevard County's public service announcements about recycling on the Space Coast government access TV station and on the Brevard Community College station.

Also, the county is using a grant the Florida Department of Environmental Protection recently gave it to put ads in newspapers.
 
Every year, the county's largest single paper recycling project takes place -- the annual school phone book recycling contest. More than 50,000 phone books were recycled as a result of the 2007 contest.

The paper industry has also announced a new record. In 2007, an all-time high of 56 percent of the paper consumed in Brevard County was recovered for recycling. That is like each one of us recycling 360 pounds of paper that we have used in our homes throughout a year.

Because of this all-time high, the American Forest & Paper Association  has set a new goal. By 2012, it wants the amount of paper recoverd for recycling to go up from 56 percent  to 60 percent.

To find out what southern university got top honors, check out the the American Forest & Paper Association at http://www.paperrecycles.org/.

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