Internship Overview

The City of Madison Streets Division seeks to increase outreach to the Madison community for improved recycling outcomes. Despite a suite of communication tools to support awareness about proper recycling practices in the community, the overall contamination rate remains around 19%, meaning that 19% of things put into recycling bins do not belong. This has both financial and environmental consequences. Therefore, the city is seeking two (2) interns for summer 2026 to conduct community outreach and recommend improved communication and education methods.

Internship Background

A resident engagement survey, questionnaire, and outreach plan are being developed by a UW–Madison student in spring 2026. Therefore, this summer internship will build on past work and focus on engaging residents about their current recycling habits and understanding, how they currently get information about recycling, and how they would like to get information in the future. Outreach should include both in-person and digital strategies and prioritize feedback from diverse audiences.

To make tangible improvements to the city’s recycling contamination rate, the Streets Division is seeking actionable recommendations for effective messaging, education, and communication strategies. Recommendations will be based on community input, evidence-based best practices, and effective strategies from other similar-sized communities.

Project Deliverables

Through this project, the student intern(s) shall:

• Conduct community outreach about recycling behaviors through a combination of inperson and digital strategies
• Analyze and summarize survey findings
• Create an itemized list of recommendations, including the approximate implementation
  expenses associated with each strategy
• Recommend education strategies and talking points for impactful messaging

Skills Needed to Be Successful

• Personable human that enjoys talking to people they do not know
• Able to synthesize information quickly and over a long period of time
• Be able to take good field notes
• Integrate researched best practices into findings

Compensation

This will be an unpaid internship experience. For questions related to options for receiving credit for this opportunity, contact Megan McBride (memcbride2@wisc.edu).

Schedule
Your schedule will be created in collaboration with your manager. Your schedule is flexible, and may require some weekend or evening work for in-person outreach activities (e.g., Farmer’s Market). Most work will be done remotely.

Anticipate working at least 20 hours per week. This internship will begin on June 1, 2026, and extend through August 7, 2026.

How to Apply

Submit a resume and a cover letter explaining related experience and why you are the best fit for this opportunity to Megan McBride (memcbride2@wisc.edu). Contact Megan for any questions.

Application Deadline:

Apply by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, April 26, 2026.