Illinois city to upgrade recycling program

LaSalle, Illinois, has been selected to receive an investment of $55,500 from the U.S. beverage industry that will be combined with $4.5 million in city funds to improve the community’s curbside recycling system and provide 3,700 households with 96-gallon recycling carts, according to a news release from American Beverage Association (ABA), the Washington-based trade association that represents America's non-alcoholic beverage industry.

The recycling cart investment is being made through the Every Bottle Back initiative in collaboration with The Recycling Partnership (TRP), Washington, and the Illinois Beverage Association (IBA), Chicago.

This partnership will benefit more than 9,300 LaSalle residents and, over the next decade, is expected to bring nearly 6.5 million new pounds of recyclables into the collection stream, including more than 252,000 pounds of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic and more than 84,000 pounds of aluminum, the ABA says.

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LaSalle is the most recent in more than two dozen initial projects that the beverage industry has committed to funding under Every Bottle Back. To date, all Every Bottle Back investments total more than $20 million in committed funding and are estimated to yield more than 726 million more pounds of PET over 10 years, according to the association.

“American Beverage is excited to be supportive of an upgrade to LaSalle’s recycling infrastructure through the Every Bottle Back initiative,” says Katherine Lugar, president and chief executive officer of ABA. “By providing residents with new high-capacity carts, we hope to increase recycling rates and modernize the community’s collection system. The beverage industry is committed to reducing our plastic footprint and this investment will be instrumental in helping do just that.”

“The Illinois Beverage Association works every day to be leaders in environmental sustainability and to develop solutions that will help us get more of our 100-percent-recyclable bottles back so they can be remade, as intended,” Illinois Beverage Association Executive Director Rob Nash says. “This meaningful investment from the beverage industry will have a long-lasting, positive impact on LaSalle, its residents and their future. We are thankful for American Beverage and our industry partners for recognizing this need and taking action to deliver.”

“The Partnership has been thrilled to work with the city of LaSalle to provide recycling carts to every residence," says Keysha Burton, director of Infrastructure Programs at TRP. "It means equitable access to recycling and increases capacity to collect more cardboard and paper, glass, plastics, and aluminum in the community.”