Five Bellevue businesses – La Tienda Grocery, Olson’s Tack Shop, Bellevue Healthcare, Pacific Bioscience Laboratories and Pro Golf Discount – have been named the top commercial recyclers in the city.

The City Council presented awards April 18. In addition to recognition from the city and Allied Waste, which handles garbage and recycling for Bellevue, each business will receive a month of free garbage service.

In the small business category, La Tienda and Olson’s both recycled 87 percent of their waste in 2010.

La Tienda, a Latin food store that recycles large amounts of cardboard, has earned the award six of the past seven years.

Olson’s, which sells horse-riding gear, implemented a “go green” initiative last year, which includes an all-email marketing system, eliminating plastic bags and reusing as many boxes as possible when shipping products to customers.

Bellevue Healthcare won in the medium size category, with an 80 percent recycling rate. The company, which sells, rents and services home medical equipment, reuses cardboard boxes, makes recycling bins easily accessible to staff and purchases office supplies made from recycled content.

Pacific Bioscience and Pro Golf Discount of Bellevue won in the large business category, both with a recycling rate of 83 percent.

Pacific Bioscience, which makes Clarisonic skin care products, trains employees in on-site recycling practices and gives them desk-side recycling bins instead of waste baskets. The company encourages suppliers to reduce packaging as much as possible.

Pro Golf Discount, which ships golfing supplies all over the world, reuses boxes, paper, bubble wrap and wooden pallets as much as possible, and then recycles packaging material that is no longer usable.

The commercial recycling program is available at no additional charge to Allied Waste commercial garbage customers. The program allows all recyclables to be combined in the same recycling container. Cardboard, mixed paper, newspaper, aluminum cans, plastic containers, plastic film and all colors of glass containers can be combined for recycling.

Allied Waste and the city began the awards program in 2005. More information is available by contacting Allied Waste at 425-646-2492 or Bellevue Utilities at 425-452-6932.