The Bureau of Solid Waste Management’s public service announcement (PSA), “Tangled Up!,” won first place in the PSA category at the 2019 National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) Blue Pencil & Gold Screen Awards. Bureau employees Rashida White and Jeanette Garcia Polasky and interns Natalie Adachi and Jahi Thomas accepted the award at a reception last month in Arlington, Virginia.
The NAGC Blue Pencil & Gold Screen Awards competition opens at the end of November each year. Professional communicators from around the country volunteer their time and talent to judge entries in more than 30 categories. Finalists were announced in April and winners were recognized at the reception in June.
Produced in-house, “Tangled Up!” demonstrates why items such as plastic bags and clothing, known in the recycling industry as “tanglers,” are not accepted by Baltimore County and other recycling programs across the country. More than 170 government, business, nonprofit and media organizations and industry professionals on four continents have shared the PSA on social media pages, blogs and websites.
“Tangled Up!” also earned the Bureau’s recycling staff a Silver Telly Award in the Social Video, General-Public Service and Activism category in May. And last month, the Maryland Recycling Network (MRN) honored the Bureau with the MRN Outstanding Government Leadership Award for its marketing campaign to educate people about tanglers, which included the PSA.
Baltimore County’s award-winning recycling PSA can be seen on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.