Keep America Beautiful and The Coca-Cola Company are working together to address one of the primary barriers to recycling in public spaces by making access to recycling bins more readily available and convenient through the 2016 Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Bin Grant Program.
As a result, Keep America Beautiful and The Coca-Cola Company have awarded six recycling bins to Western Nevada College, making more bins available to visitors of the Carson City campus.
“The grant from Coca-Cola and the addition of six recycling bins on campus strengthens WNC’s commitment to sustainability,” said Mark Ghan, WNC Vice President of Administrative and Legal Services.
Ghan added, “We made a formal commitment to take steps to reduce the college’s carbon footprint in 2009 with the signing of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. Since then environmental enhancements have included recycling, solar arrays to power buildings on multiple campuses, upgrades to more efficient lighting, water stations to reduce the use of plastic bottles, among other initiatives.”
In total, the Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Bin Grant Program is providing 3,522 recycling bins to colleges and universities, along with 996 bins to local governments and nonprofit organizations. The recycling bins are made possible through a grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation, the philanthropic arm of The Coca-Cola Company.
More than 45 percent of the bins are designed specifically for permanent, ongoing use in public spaces such as athletic fields, K-12 schools, fairs and festivals, special events and park settings, with the remaining 55 percent to be used by students in college residence hall settings. The 2016 program is expected to result in an estimated 1 million pounds of recyclable materials collected during their first year in use.
“The No. 1 thing we can do to get people to recycle is make it convenient,” said Brenda Pulley, Keep America Beautiful senior vice president of recycling. “With Coca-Cola’s continued support, the grant program addresses that need by creating thousands of new opportunities for people to recycle in public areas across the country.”
“At Coca-Cola, we are working with partners across the country to invest in, and support a strong recycling system,” said Bruce Karas, Coca-Cola North America’s vice president of sustainability. “Through partnerships like the Keep America Beautiful and the Public Space Recycling Bin Grant program, we can help reduce overall waste by making it even easier and more convenient for people to recycle both at home and in public spaces.”
The Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Recycling Bin Grant Program addresses lack of convenience by providing a significant number of bins in strategic locations. Including the 2016 grants, more than 49,000 recycling bins will have been placed by the program in 925 communities nationwide since its inception in 2007. In addition to the grants, Keep America Beautiful provides technical best practice guidance to grant recipients and organizations about setting up effective away-from-home and on-the-go recycling programs.
Grant recipients were chosen by Keep America Beautiful based on their potential to collect the most cans and bottles as well other considerations such as the extent of their need, recycling experience and their ability to sustain the program in the future. A full list of the 2016 Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Bin Grant recipients, as well as Keep America Beautiful’s best practices guide, “Designing Effective Public Space Recycling Programs,” are available at http://bingrant.org.
Behavioral research has shown two of the primary barriers that stop people from recycling are the lack of convenient opportunities and confusion about what and how to recycle. A 2009 study conducted by Keep America Beautiful showed only 12 percent of surveyed public locations had infrastructure to recover recyclable items. This lack of recycling opportunities is reflected in a separate national survey conducted for Keep America Beautiful in 2013, in which 92 percent of respondents said they recycle at home while only 41 percent indicated they typically recycle in public spaces.
In addition to providing more convenient opportunities to recycle, the Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Bin Grant helps to address the issue of confusion by providing bins that incorporate recognized best practices for bin design and labeling.