MURRELLS INLET, South Carolina, November 05, 2009 - Two New England communities Tuesday re-elected city officials who had strongly backed their city's WasteZero^® Systems, while a referendum to repeal the 13 month-old WasteZero^® program in Malden, Massachusetts was defeated.

The WasteZero^® System charges residents for garbage disposal the same way they're charged for electricity or gas - by the amount they consume - thereby creating an incentive to recycle more and generate less waste. To throw away their trash, households use official municipal trash metering bags that they purchase from area retailers.

In Concord, New Hampshire, City Councilor Keith Nyhan, who, as chair of the solid waste committee, recommended last year that the city move forward with WasteZero^® trash metering, was re-elected with 80 percent of the vote.

Nyhan, who will serve a third term, said he viewed his victory as "a pretty good endorsement of what I've done and what people think I will continue to do." Nyhan said he never doubted the decision to bring WasteZero^® waste metering to Concord. "I never questioned if what I was doing was right," Nyhan said, "because the numbers were working out."

In Malden, not only did the city's repeal referendum not pass, but voters turned out to re-elect city officials who backed the WasteZero^® trash-metering system, and defeat candidates who built their campaigns around backing the repeal.

On Saturday, Fox News highlighted the notable success of Malden's WasteZero^TM program. Last week, the Concord WasteZero^® System was featured in USA Today.

Fox, the national news network, shined a light on WasteZero^® and Malden's impressive waste diversion and recycling numbers and the money that the program has injected into Malden's budget. "The numbers don't lie," reporter Laura Ingle said. "Solid waste has been cut in half from a year before, and recycling is up 75 percent."

"For us it's been a total success both financially and environmentally," Malden Mayor Richard C. Howard told Fox.

According to the Malden Observer, before the WasteZero^® System, Malden trash tonnage averaged 21,000 tons a year. Since the implementation of WasteZero^®, the tonnage has been cut in half, to about 10,000 tons. As a result, said Mayor Howard, the city has saved in excess of $800,000 in solid-waste disposal costs. Bag sales, meanwhile, have topped $1.7 million dollars for the calendar year.

USA Today focused on Concord's noteworthy early success in just the first few months of the program: "The city's 3-month-old 'pay-as-you-throw' trash program is reducing trash volume by 50% and increasing recycling rates by 75%." The article also noted, "Officials said that if the trend continues, the city can save about $528,000 in reduced trash-disposal costs."

WasteZero^® President and CEO Mark Dancy called the election day results "an important validation of the benefits of the WasteZero^® System. And because of stories like the ones in USA Today and on Fox, the rest of the country is getting the chance to see just how impactful the WasteZero^® System can be.

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