Illinois city receives recycling grant

The Washington-based American Beverage Association has awarded $225,000 to the city of Rockford, Illinois, through a grant from The Recycling Partnership as part of the Every Bottle Back initiative.

The association says this project aims to improve the city’s recycling collection system and boost its recycling rates by providing larger, standardized recycling carts and a residential outreach and recycling education program. 

“American Beverage is excited to be a part of Rockford’s efforts to revolutionize the city’s recycling infrastructure,” American Beverage president and CEO Kevin Keane says. “America’s beverage companies are making a difference in community recycling programs across the country by making them more efficient and more effective. We want every bottle back and are eager to see the impact this investment will bring to Rockford and its residents.”

The grant will support the creation of a recycling education program and an upgrade of the city’s 32-gallon recycling bins to 64-gallon recycling carts.

“This partnership will help support Rockford’s efforts to overhaul its recycling system and expand recycling access for nearly 150,000 residents,” says Maddy Norris, executive director of the Illinois Beverage Association. “We are making our environment here in Illinois more sustainable, and this project will help us do just that by yielding millions of new pounds of recyclable materials, including the beverage industry’s valuable 100 percent recyclable bottles and cans.”

Over the next decade, it is projected this investment will result in the collection of an additional 46 million pounds of recyclable materials, including more than 600,000 pounds of aluminum and nearly two million pounds of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET), American Beverage says. 

“The Recycling Partnership is pleased to work with the city of Rockford to advance the local recycling program for residents,” says Cody Marshall, chief system optimization officer at The Recycling Partnership. “This project is a great example of the impact public and private partnerships are having on residential recycling so that more materials are able to be captured and turned into new materials." 

This investment in Rockford is part of 53 initial projects through the Every Bottle Back initiative, and is the fourth investment in Illinois, with previous investments in the cities of Villa Park, LaSalle and Chicago. The program is funded by members of the beverage industry, including Coca-Cola Co., Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo, and its sustainability partners, including The Recycling Partnership, Washington.

American Beverage says investments from the beverage industry nationally total more than $31 million in committed funding and are estimated to yield approximately 900 million pounds of recycled PET and more than 77 million pounds of recycled aluminum over the next decade.