Euless Receives Top Honors
2006 City Livability Awards

Mayor Mary Lib Saleh and the City of Euless have been awarded first place honors in the 2006 City Livability Awards Program sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Waste Management.

The Awards recognize and honor mayors for exemplary leadership in developing and implementing programs that improve the quality of life in America's cities. An independent panel of judges, selected by The U.S. Conference of Mayors, determined the winning cities from a pool of 250 applicants based on three criteria: mayoral leadership, creativity and innovation, and broad impact on the quality of life for residents.

The City Livability Awards were presented at the Conference of Mayors' Annual Luncheon by Mr. Barry Caldwell, Senior Vice President, Governmental Affairs and Corporate Communications of Waste Management.

There are approx-imately 12,500 single family households in Euless. According to EPA estimates, 59.3% of the municipal solid waste disposal can be diverted through backyard composting and vermicomposting (using worms). In an effort to reuse and recycle items in Euless and reduce the amount of waste going into landfills, Mayor Mary Lib Saleh created a composting education program, Compostology.

The Science and Fun of Backyard Composting, provides interactive educational opportunities for composting and vermi-composting to teachers, students and residents through workshops, hands-on learning opportunities and school presentations. Euless provided bins and thermometers for plant composting, as well as worm bins and red worms for vermi-composting, to the residents. Both types of composting help accomplish goals such as water conservation, waste stream reduction and a method to continually teach students and all residents the ease and benefits of waste diversion. Tonnage report results show the Compost-ology program diverted 110.28 tons of material from Euless' waste stream in January - March 2005 when compared to January - March 2004 figures.