washington dc– On January 11, the City of Nashville announced the launch of enhancements to modernize its recycling program with support from American Beverage and The Recycling Partnership. A total of $4.8 million will be used to replace the existing monthly collection schedule and increase home recycling collection frequency for 141,000 households. As part of this effort, a $141,000 investment from The Recycling Partnership and American Beverage’s Every Bottle Back initiative will be used to inform residents about increased collection days and provide education on how to best recycle.
Beginning January 30th, collections in the City of Nashville will increase from monthly to bi-weekly, making Nashville like many other large cities across the country. This change will give residents more opportunities to participate in the recycling process, reduce collection intervals, and make recycling more convenient by creating a consistent and easy-to-remember schedule. Importantly, this investment will ensure the collection of more valuable recyclable materials, such as 100% recyclable PET bottles in the beverage industry, and reduce the amount of raw material supplied to manufacturers, including neighboring manufacturers. to help rework into new products.
Cody Marshall, Chief Optimization Officer at The Recycling Partnership, said: “Changes in collection frequency are expected to create an additional 156 million pounds of recyclables over the next ten years. That means more cardboard, more paper and cartons, more aluminum, It means more plastic containers are recycled into new products and packaging.”
This recycling collection shift requires infrastructure, operations, routing, and intensive collaboration with education and outreach. The Recycling Partnership is working with the City to provide technical assistance in these areas, and funding from the Every Bottle Back initiative is important for the education and outreach needed to inform residents about the changes.
Education includes an infocard that is mailed to each household in the city and serves two purposes. First, notify each household of the new collection schedule. The second is educating residents about what can be recycled from street carts and what needs alternative disposal to reduce contamination within carts.
Catherine Rueger, President and CEO of American Beverage, said: “This investment will help increase the city’s recycling rate by educating residents about what products can be recycled and encouraging them to participate in Nashville’s expanding recycling program. Through our efforts, we are optimistic that we will be able to collect more specially designed 100% recyclable bottles and make our collection system work better than ever for all our residents.”
“The Tennessee Beverage Association remains committed to making recycling easier and more convenient for residents and preventing plastic from ending up where it was not intended: our environments and community spaces.” said Greg Atkins, president and CEO of the Tennessee Beverage Association. “This grant from the beverage industry will help us achieve this goal and ultimately invest in the future of our great state. Thank you American Beverage and Davidson County leaders for their generosity. And we’re proud to help make Nashville cleaner and more beautiful in 2023.”
Increased recycling collection frequency is expected to recover 6.1 million pounds of virgin polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and 2.3 million pounds of virgin aluminum.
About Recycling Partnership:
The Recycling Partnership solves circularity problems. As a mission-oriented NGO, we are committed to promoting a circular economy by building better recycling systems. We mobilize people, data and solutions across our value chain to reduce waste and environmental impact while unlocking economic benefits. We work with thousands of communities to transform underperforming recycling programs. We partner with companies to achieve circularity in packaging, increase access to recycled materials and meet sustainability commitments. We also work with governments to address the systemic needs of home recycling systems and develop policy solutions to promote a circular economy. We foster public-private partnerships to drive positive change at every stage of the recycling and circular process. Since 2014, we have diverted 770 million pounds of new recyclables from landfills, saved 968 million gallons of water, avoided more than 670,000 tons of greenhouse gases and met our target pollution rates. significantly reduced. For more information, visit recyclingpartnership.org.
About American Beverage’s Every Bottle Back Initiative:
Launched in 2019, the Every Bottle Back initiative brings together The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr. A unified initiative to improve the circularity of This commitment supports the individual sustainability efforts of The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr. Pepper and PepsiCo.
For more information on Every Bottle Back, please visit www.EveryBottleBack.org.