The City of Victoria Environmental Services Department won the Linda B. Smith Memorial Award for Outstanding Environmental Youth Education and Outreach Programs.

The department was honored for its Golden Crescent Recycling Program and its Victoria Kids Recycle Program, a single stream recycling program that is offered on 27 school campuses in the Victoria school district. The program began in 2006 on three campuses and has continued to grow since.

The city partnered with the Golden Crescent Regional Planning Commission to form the Golden Crescent Recycling Program and offer the program to the seven outlying counties. The program is a network of school recycling programs tailored to fit the needs of each participating community, including schools in Calhoun, DeWitt, Gonzales, Jackson, Lavaca and Victoria counties. The program has been implemented at 22 campuses with 33 more campuses joining in 2012. Both recycling programs provide all of the amenities needed to recycle, including recycling bins for every classroom, recycling trailers, curriculum, training, promotional items, informational materials and help with opening recycling drop-off centers.

Victoria schools alone have recycled 470 tons of recyclables since 2006 - 120 tons of that in 2012 alone.

The Environmental Services Team received the 2012 Leadership Award from the State of Texas Alliance for Recycling aboard the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi on Oct. 23 as part of the 15th annual Recycling and Sustainability Summit.