American Beverage selects McKinney, Texas, for recycling grant

Washington-based trade group American Beverage, whose members make and market soft drinks, has awarded $986,000 to McKinney, Texas, about 35 miles north of Dallas, to help fund new curbside recycling carts for 58,000 households.

The group says the grant also is intended to provide funding for a "robust" education and outreach campaign designed to reduce contamination in the curbside recycling stream.

“The investment in McKinney’s recycling program goes hand in hand with [the] Texas Beverage Association’s efforts to promote a cleaner, healthier environment,” says Carol McGarah, executive director of the Austin, Texas-based Texas Beverage Association. “The educational aspect of this grant is so important to getting more of our bottles recycled so they can be remade as intended.”

American Beverage estimates over the next decade the grant could yield 43,500 tons of recyclables that may have gone uncollected, including nearly 1,700 tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic and more than 550 tons of aluminum.

The McKinney grant is part of 64 initial projects that the largest members of the beverage industry—The Coca-Cola Co. Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo—and its partners have committed to fund through the Every Bottle Back initiative.

To date, the beverage industry has committed to provide nearly $39 million in funding nationwide. The investments are being estimated by American Beverage to yield some 457,000 new tons of recycled PET and more than 43,500 tons of recycled aluminum over the next decade.