The International Bottled Water Association will help fund the Recycling Partnership, an effort to boost curbside recycling throughout the country.
“The bottled water industry is actively working to build partnerships that will help increase recycling efforts, and the reliable, scalable results that the Recycling Partnership delivers are hitting the mark for us,” said Chris Hogan, IBWA vice president of communications, in a statement.
“The recycling rate for single-serve PET plastic bottled water containers has more than doubled in the last 10 years and they are the most frequently recycled PET beverage containers in curbside recycling programs. As an industry, we are always looking for ways to strengthen existing programs and help to expand recycling efforts ever further,” he continued.
The Recycling Partnership last year leveraged $11 million in new recycling infrastructure, the group said. That includes deployment of 165,000 recycling carts.
“It’s a pretty simple equation. More funding partners equals more resources, which directly equates to the recovery of more high quality recyclable material,” said Keefe Harrison, executive director of the Recycling Partnership, in a statement.
The partnership also recently awarded a grant to Santa Fe., N.M., for the purchase of new recycling carts. The group also will help the city with education and support to help deliver the carts to 29,000 households.
Santa Fe expects to roll out the carts this fall.