RR beautification effort awarded

RIO RANCHO — The city’s Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful Division (KRRB) has been recognized for its “exemplary performance.”

KRRB received a President’s Circle Award by Keep America Beautiful, the city announced in a news release.

“The President’s Circle Award recognizes exemplary performance by certified affiliates of the national nonprofit in creating clean, green, and beautiful communities,” according to the release. “Specific efforts include administering activities in the areas of litter prevention, community appearance indexing, recycle and waste reduction, and beautification.”

The city said that, through litter cleanups, KRRB removed 697,340 pounds of debris from parks, open spaces, roads and illegal dump sites in 2016. And, in partnership with Sandoval County, KRRB operates the City of Rio Rancho and Sandoval County Recycling Center, which diverted 495,700 pounds of waste from landfills and properly landfilled 52,500 pounds of tires in 2016. Using 5,440 volunteers for a total of 24,494 hours, as well as in-kind donations from local businesses and 3,767 hours of court-ordered community service workers, KRRB provided a total community benefit of $907,536, the city said.

KRRB is a division of the City’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department.