LAUREL, Md. – American Beverage announced that the City of Laurel, Maryland, will receive a grant-funded investment through The Recycling Partnership to expand its recycling program as part of the Every Bottle Back initiative, a beverage industry-led effort to reduce the industry’s plastic footprint and keep bottles out of nature.

The $112,465 investment from The Recycling Partnership and American Beverage will help provide Laurel residents with 7,150 large-capacity curbside recycling carts for free, making it easier for families to recycle more. The 65-gallon lidded recycling carts will help increase collection rates, keeping recyclables out of nature and from being wasted in landfills. The investment includes funding for direct-to-resident outreach and education on what is and isn’t recyclable, helping to cut down on contamination in the recycling stream.

“We are thrilled to celebrate Earth Month by announcing our next Every Bottle Back investment in the City of Laurel, Maryland,” said Katherine Lugar, president and chief executive officer of American Beverage. “We’re helping to modernize the city’s recycling program, improve recycling rates and ensure more of our valuable bottles are collected and ultimately remade into new bottles – reducing our use of new plastic.”

Launched in 2019 by American Beverage, the Every Bottle Back initiative is an integrated and comprehensive partnership featuring The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo that aims to improve the collection of the beverage industry's plastic beverage bottles, which are designed to be 100% recyclable.

“Maryland’s beverage bottlers and distributors share the goal of ensuring valuable recyclable materials, like our carefully designed 100% recyclable bottles, are collected so they can be remade into new products, as intended,” said Ellen Valentino, executive vice president of the Maryland-Delaware-Washington, D.C. Beverage Association. “We’re proud of our partnership with the City of Laurel and look forward to working together to get every bottle back.”

The investment is estimated to yield 7.32 million new pounds of recyclable materials over 10 years, of which 285,480 pounds will be polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and 109,800 pounds will be aluminum, both of which are used to make 100% recyclable cans and bottles.

“The Recycling Partnership is proud to partner with the City of Laurel to help households capture more quality recyclables,” said Cody Marshall, chief of community strategy at The Recycling Partnership. “We are grateful to American Beverage’s Every Bottle Back initiative for their support of this recycling transformation that will keep valuable recyclables out of our environment and waterways and put them back into the circular economy to provide much needed supply for local producers.”

“As the City works to improve our sustainable practices, the One and Done Program will assist in continuing to protect our environment, reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and enhance the efficiency of our trash, recycling, and composting collections,” said Laurel Mayor Craig A. Moe.

This investment in Laurel is the 12th of 22 projects that the beverage industry has committed to fund under Every Bottle Back, including a recent investment in Baltimore. These investments total $14.3 million in committed funding and will yield an estimated 698 million more pounds of recycled PET over 10 years.

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About American Beverage’s Every Bottle Back initiative:

The Every Bottle Back initiative is an integrated and comprehensive initiative by The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo, alongside sustainability leaders Closed Loop Partners, The Recycling Partnership and World Wildlife Fund, designed to improve plastics circularity. These efforts support individual sustainability commitments undertaken by The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo.  

Learn more about Every Bottle Back at www.EveryBottleBack.org.

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To schedule an interview, please contact American Beverage’s press office at media@americanbeverage.org.

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