Target joins The Recycling Partnership

The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, has welcomed Target Corp., headquartered in Minneapolis, as its first retail company member. With the addition of Target, members of The Recycling Partnership now represent the entire recycling system for consumer packaging, including manufacturers, brands, retailers and the recycling industry. The nonprofit says this means that members across all sectors have committed to working together to make recycling stronger and to recover more materials for use in manufacturing.

Target serves guests at 1,888 stores—1,797 in the United States and 124 in Canada—and at Target.com. As part of its commitment to corporate responsibility, Target has given 5 percent of its profit away in the form of community grants and programs. Today, that giving equals more than $4 million a week. More information is at https://corporate.target.com/corporate-responsibility.

“Target joining signals a new era for our organization, as we are officially supported by the whole system,” says Keefe Harrison, executive director of The Recycling Partnership. “More than that, Target brings specific expertise in meeting the needs of the many guests to their stores, and through our work together that insight will translate into better recycling programs for more consumers across the country.”

According to The Recycling Partnership, the most successful recycling programs are convenient, enjoy high participation and produce quality recyclables; however, budget constraints and other barriers prevent many communities from achieving success in these areas. Using private funding from companies like Target, The Recycling Partnership says it brings grants, tools and specialized marketing and operations expertise to help underperforming programs transform into top performers.

The Recycling Partnership says opportunities exist to help communities advance curbside recycling. In the recent Sustainable Packaging Coalition access study, only 53 percent of the U.S. population receive recycling as a standard service, and even fewer have cart-based programs. Target’s investment will help extend curbside recycling to underserved communities, a proven method for increasing recycling and making more recycled raw materials available for packaging, The Recycling Partnership says.

“We are thrilled to partner with The Recycling Partnership to help make recycling an easy, accessible and seamless experience for our guests and communities,” says Jennifer Silberman, vice president of sustainability and wellness at Target. “At Target, sustainability is a principle that drives the decisions we make across the company to continuously improve the guest experience, and this partnership helps further our commitment to create long-term systemic changes in our communities.”

Since the start of 2015, The Recycling Partnership says it has helped to catalyze $21 million of new recycling infrastructure through grants and technical support, affecting more than 2 million households. Over the coming months, The Recycling Partnership says it expects to place more than 300,000 additional carts. Further, nonprofit has recently released free online open source tools and resources that have been downloaded by communities representing nearly 10 million households.

“At The Recycling Partnership, we believe that every community deserves a great recycling program, and the economic and environmental benefits that such programs bring,” Harrison says. “Together with Target, we will help underserved communities get the support they need to thrive.”