Last week, the Ohio Beverage Association celebrated America Recycles Day by announcing the beverage industry’s new, unprecedented goal of building a circular economy for plastic bottles.

Ohio Beverage Association executive director Kimberly McConville shared more about this exciting initiative in a letter to Cleveland.com – “The goal is simple: decrease the use of new plastic by increasing the collection of our 100% recyclable bottles so they can be remade into new bottles. We’ll achieve this by improving community recycling, tracking our progress in using less new plastic and increasing consumer awareness surrounding our recyclable bottles.”

Our bottles and their caps are intentionally made to be remade and are not single use.  We use a versatile plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which is in high demand because it can easily be used to make new bottles or other consumer products.  We are working with the preeminent environmental and sustainability groups, World Wildlife Fund, The Recycling Partnership and Closed Loop Partners to ensure more of our plastic bottles are collected so they do not end up in places where they do not belong.  And, we want every bottle back so that we use less new plastic to bring beverages to market. 

Visit EveryBottleBack.org to learn more about our new initiative.