American Beverage, which represents the non-alcoholic beverage industry, announced its Every Bottle Back initiative is investing $56,938 through a grant from The Recycling Partnership to help support the creation a new recycling collection facility in Mobile, Ala. The beverage industry’s investment is part of a public-private partnership effort to fund the construction of a new recycling facility in southeastern Mobile, hire an on-site attendant to oversee the new facility and bring recycling education outreach to nearly 100,000 households. This Every Bottle Back investment is the first of its kind in Alabama.
“We are excited to help provide access to modernized recycling collection for residents of Mobile with the first Every Bottle Back investment in the great state of Alabama,” said Kevin Keane, president and chief executive officer of American Beverage. “Supporting this new facility will improve recycling rates and ensure that our recyclable bottles and cans can be properly collected and remade as intended. And that helps us reduce our use of new plastic.”
“Communities across Alabama need greater access to recycling and thanks to this investment Mobile residents will soon be able to recycle valuable beverage containers easier than ever before,” said Virginia Banister, president of the Alabama Beverage Association. “We are thankful to work with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and The Recycling Partnership to bring this facility to life and look forward to continuing find ways to create a cleaner and more sustainable future for Alabamians.”
“The Recycling Partnership is pleased to work with the City of Mobile and our partners to improve recycling access in Alabama,” said Cody Marshall, Chief System Optimization Strategy Officer at The Recycling Partnership. “This new recycling drop-off site will give Mobile residents the opportunity to recycle more, leading to more materials able to go back into the circular economy to provide much needed feedback for manufacturers.
The investment in the new drop-off recycling facility will significantly boost the number of recyclable materials gathered and processed in the region. Over the next decade, it is projected that this investment will result in the collection of 130,000 new pounds of aluminum and 390,000 pounds new of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the recyclable plastic used to make beverage bottles.
This investment in Mobile is part of 53 initial projects that the beverage industry has committed to fund through its Every Bottle Back initiative. Across the nation investments to date are estimated to yield more than 900 million new pounds of PET and 87 million more pounds of aluminum over the next decade.