Page 20 - Jan-Feb 2020

KNOXVILLE
“Take it to Charlie!” Campaign
Innovative. Creative. And downright funny.
The City of Knoxville wasn’t joking
when it launched Tennessee’s first mobile
Household Hazardous Waste (HHW)
Program in late December.
But the program’s recent kickoff event
at a Farragut church was memorable…
and chuckle-inspiring…when the city’s
hazardous waste truck rolled into the
parking lot with a very friendly, LARGE…
cartoon character on its side proclaiming
“Don’t chance it…take it to Charlie!”
Patience Melnik, City of Knoxville’s
Waste and Resources Manager, confirmed
that the box truck (i.e. mobile collection
unit) is being used not only as a collection
device, but also as a rolling billboard, with sure HHW doesn’t
colorful artwork featuring an oversized
caricature of the household waste facility’s
manager, Charlie Thomas.
The idea of using Charlie’s smiling
face emerged when her team was
brainstorming on how to spread the word
of HHW’s mission and actual physical
location at 1033 Elm Street. “Our HHW
Facility is underused. It’s centrally located HHW “drive-through” drop-off events,
but people don’t know where it is,” she
explained.
“It started out as a joke…plastering his
face on the side of the box truck that we’ll
take to mobile collection events,” she said.
The group thought about it some more and
decided Charlie’s face would “humanize”
the program, perhaps making the mobile
collection drives less intimidating. And
everywhere the truck goes, Charlie is
aboard.
Graphic designer Dan Frye with the
City of Knoxville Communications
Department used a photo of Charlie
to create the graphic that wraps the
program’s truck. And when the truck’s
artwork was unveiled, Melnik said “it was
glorious to see Charlie’s reaction. His eyes
looked like they popped out of his head
and he laughed for 10 minutes without
stopping.”
All kidding aside, the “Take it to
Charlie” program’s serious goals are to
familiarize Knox County citizens with the
exact location of the HHW facility on Elm
Street, as well as educate them regarding
what constitutes household hazardous
20 TPW January/February 2020
waste and why that
waste should go
to the collection
facility (instead of
thrown out with the
regular garbage or
down the drain).
The most common
HHW examples
include motor oil,
pesticides, gasoline,
rechargeable
batteries and
antifreeze. Melnik
said many reasons
exist for making
go into the landfill,
including toxicity and flammability.
At their public events and on their
website, Melnik and her team emphasize
that, unlike garbage, a fee is never charged assists with program intake, planning
to residents to bring in or drop off
household hazardous waste. After this first
event in Farragut, they’re planning more
where volunteers will man parking lots,
directing drivers through lines, unloading
the occupants’ materials for them. Every
vehicle will receive information and maps
about the actual HHW facility’s location
(and the products it accepts)…and the
drivers never have to exit their cars.
“Convenience is a big part of this. We’re calendar is beginning to fill with talks to
bringing the HHW facility to the citizens
in a way to make it more convenient for
them. We’re going out to the edges of the
county,” she said, noting that “Charlie’s
truck” is perfect for visiting large vacant
parking lots situated around churches and
shopping centers.
Melnik said they’ll also accept out-
of-county materials from residents (but
not from commercial contractors) at
the events. Half a dozen similar drop-
off events are planned in 2020, through
funding from a Tennessee Department of
Environment and Conservation (TDEC)
grant and Knox County.
Built in 1997 and expanded in 2018, the
4,000-square-foot HHW facility on Elm
Street is one of the state’s four permanent
By Lisa Hood Skinner
HHW sites, and is inspected by TDEC
several times yearly. Recent upgrades at
the facility include more storage capacity,
signage, eyewash showers and a new
ventilation system.
The city tracks usage of the facility,
which is how they found that only about
five percent of City and Knox County
residents currently are using it. On a
typical day, about 20 vehicles come
through the HHW facility after passing
over the scales, just like those who drop off
their garbage at the Transfer Station side
of the operation. Melnik hopes the “Take
it to Charlie” program will increase that
number of vehicles over the next year, and
wants to renew the TDEC grant upon the
project’s success.
She said the grant helped fund parts
of the facility’s expansion, Charlie’s box
truck and the salary of a technician who
and execution. When not being used in
public events, “Charlie’s truck” transports
propane tanks.
Time (and metrics) will tell if Charlie’s
“mascot” image helps spread the word
about the facility’s physical location and
increases intake through the mobile
collection events. Already, the program
has attracted attention from surrounding
municipalities who are curious about
Knoxville’s methodology. Melnik’s