Monitoring Desk
ATLANTA: The Coca-Cola Foundation is awarding $5.4 million in charitable grants to fund community recycling pilots in seven cities across the United States. This includes $4 million for a three-year program with the Recycling Partnership in Atlanta.
Coca-Cola’s philanthropic arm gave funding to the Recycling Partnership, the Green Blue Institute, Keep Houston Beautiful, and the Boston Parks and Recreation Foundation for pilots in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Houston as well as Essex County, New Jersey, Long Beach, California, and Orange County, Florida.
“In each pilot city, local partners will work together to identify barriers to recycling on a local level and test a range of solutions,” said Carlos Pagoaga, group director of community partnerships for the Coca-Cola Foundation.
Atlanta has already completed a successful pilot, according to the foundation. The national nonprofit organization Recycling Partnership, with funding from Coca-Cola North America, reached 5,000 households for a recycling education project in 2017. Now, with the new grant, the organization plans to expand the city program to 10,000 households over the next three years.
Street teams will go to every zip code in the city and look at recycling bins. Team members “tag” each bin with a card that informs residents what they can and can’t recycle, and lets them know how they’re doing, the Coca-Cola Foundation explained. Their goal is to reduce recycling contamination and measurably improve recycling rates.
Cleaning Up Recycling Streams
“Two of the most pressing issues with recycling in the U.S. today are lack of access, followed by contamination in the recycling stream,” said Keefe Harrison, CEO of the Recycling Partnership.
Cleaner recycling streams generated more value for recyclers, the Coca-Cola Foundation concluded last month after supporting recycling efforts in Atlanta, Chicago, and Denver. Besides the informational tags on carts, teams spread the word through bus ads, billboards, social media, and neighborhood campaigning.
Within a matter of months, the pilot routes showed improvement. Atlanta saw a 57% reduction in contamination, Chicago had a 30% reduction in contamination, and Denver saw a 25% increase in aluminum can recovery.
Early last year, Coca-Cola started an initiative called World Without Waste that aims to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can the company sells globally by 2030. In order to help reach that goal, the company is investing in marketing recycling as well as technologies that make the process easier.
“Recycling is an issue that cannot be solved at a national level,” said Bruce Karas, vice president, environment and sustainability, Coca-Cola North America. “Wrapping our arms around the challenge at the local level is how we will make measurable progress”.
Courtesy: (environmentalleader.com)
