Recycling investments benefit communities

Every day, Iowans enjoy beverages made by hardworking members of the Iowa Beverage Association. But after the beverage is finished, what happens to the bottle or can?

At the Iowa Beverage Association, we are committed to supporting smart solutions to bolster our state’s recycling infrastructure, so a plastic bottle recycled is a plastic bottle that will be remade.

But to ensure this happens, we need state-of-the-art recycling infrastructure.

The association is working in communities across the state, including Scott County and the neighboring areas, to improve collection, sorting capacity and to help raise awareness about the recyclability of our bottles. We are doing this through the Every Bottle Back initiative.

Every Bottle Back is a one-of-a-kind collaboration between The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo in partnership with Closed Loop Partners to inspire action at each step in the life cycle of our bottles.

Through Every Bottle Back, an investment of $600,000 from the beverage industry will help revitalize and modernize the recycling technology and resources used by the Waste Commission of Scott County (WCSC). In addition to this funding, a total of $5 million will be invested by Closed Loop Partners, a partner organization that supports projects to strengthen our circular economy, to further provide for equipment upgrades to the Waste Commission of Scott County Materials Recovery Facilities (WCSC MRF) operating system.

The investment in Scott County will add three new optical sorters and increase WCSC MRF’s annual inbound capacity by an estimated 4 million pounds. The new sorters are also expected to increase the collection of the PET plastic used for our bottles, as well as aluminum, scrap metal and other recyclable commodities by 1.2 million pounds annually.

This investment brings Scott County and the neighboring areas short- and long-term economic benefits. The modernization will increase revenues generated from the sale of recyclables like plastic bottles that reprocessors turn into material for new products. In total, commodity sales are projected to bring in more than $200,000 a year. Over the next 10 years, the investments are estimated to yield 52 million pounds of recyclable materials.

We are proud of the substantial investment in Scott County, but the impact of Every Bottle Back reaches far beyond our great state. Nationally, Every Bottle Back has committed $19.6 million for community recycling projects.

At home in Iowa, our members remain committed to working with recyclers and communities to act on our sustainability goals and keep plastic out of the environment as part of our ongoing work to build a circular economy for our valuable bottles and cans.

John Otterbeck is chairman of the Iowa Beverage Association.

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