Montgomery County Health Department receives Green Certification

Montgomery County, TN – The Montgomery County Health Department became a Clarksville-Montgomery County Green Certified organization last week.

The Health Department is looking out for the health of our community as well as the health of our community’s environment. On Tuesday, May 28th the Health Department celebrated their CMC Green Certification with a green ribbon cutting ceremony.

After cutting the ribbon, Montgomery County Mayor Carolyn Bowers asked Public Health Director Joey Smith what type of things they did to earn certification.

Smith responded, “The employees worked as a team to come up with many ideas. We consolidated our printing efforts and went to more efficient central copiers from individual printers. This saves on electricity, ink cartridges, as well as wear and tear on multiple machines. With the help of Bi-County, we were also very successful in our recycling efforts.”

“We now have individual recycling containers at each desk and centrally located garbage cans, which is much different than before,” said Smith. “When we changed the ratio of waste baskets to recycling containers, our waste dramatically decreased.”

Smith went on to say, “All of our efforts, along with encouraging more electronic communication, have saved us over $80.00 per month in trash fees. With the addition of our Women, Infant and Children (WIC) Clinic we thought we would have to add another dumpster but we now have less trash than we did with only one building.”

“Thank you for doing this and keep up the good work,” said Bowers.

City of Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillan also congratulated them and asked those for a show of hands from those who were taking some of the recycling and other initiatives home. Over half the employees raised their hands.

“For those of you who are not yet doing these things, I encourage you to please consider it,” McMillan said.

The Montgomery County Health Department, including the WIC clinic services the health needs of more than 225 citizens in our community per day and an average number of 57,000 people per year.

If your business has an interest in learning more about the Clarksville-Montgomery County Green Certification Program email Michelle Newell at manewell@mcgtn.net or call 931.245.1867.