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INFORMATION ITEM <br /> Memorandum <br /> To: Board of Orange County Commissioners <br /> From: Gayle Wilson, Solid Waste Management Director <br /> Subject: Solid Waste Department Awarded Year-long Interns from UNC's <br /> Department of Health Behavior for 2016-17 <br /> Date: April 19, 2016 <br /> Orange County Solid Waste Management has been awarded four interns from the UNC <br /> School of Public Health Department of Health Behavior who will be working through all <br /> of the next academic year on improving recycling and waste reduction at apartments in <br /> Orange County. The Department was awarded this project through a competitive process <br /> put on annually by the Department of Health Behavior to give their Master's candidates <br /> an opportunity to develop, demonstrate and measure practical applications of their work <br /> to improve health behaviors; solid waste management, at its core, is a public health issue. <br /> The Solid Waste Management Department proposed that a group of interns work on the <br /> ongoing challenge of improving recycling and waste reduction at multifamily housing <br /> throughout Orange County. A diverse and transient population of over 30,000 lives in <br /> over 16,000 multifamily housing in the County and the County provides recycling <br /> services to virtually all of them. The Department competed for the Capstone interns with <br /> twenty-seven other area agencies and non-profits and were among nine selected. <br /> Annually the UNC Department of Health Behavior solicits projects for its graduate <br /> students' Capstone projects as part of their Masters of Public Health degrees. The <br /> Departments' intentions for their interns are to: <br /> 1. Provide mentored, real-world learning opportunities for HB MPH students; <br /> 2. Provide services to, and advance the missions of, local organizations who <br /> do public health work; and <br /> 3. Produce products that have a positive impact on public health. <br /> The four interns who will be working on the project are Mersedes Brown, Tianyuan Liu, <br /> Morgen Palfrey and Katherine Souris. Blair Pollock, County Solid Waste Planner will <br /> act as their preceptor assisted by Muriel Williman, the Department's Education and <br /> Outreach Coordinator. The team will meet with our staff April 28 to begin planning next <br /> year's work. <br />