The Indiana Recycling Coalition (IRC) has announced that Jackson County Recyclcing District is among the 30 recipients of its public space recycling bin grant program. Thirty public venues across the state will receive recycling bins with the goal of increasing beverage container recycling at those locations.
“The IRC is pleased to provide new opportunities to capture beverage containers consumed away from home by increasing public space recycling options in Indiana,” said Carey Hamilton, the executive director of the Indiana Recycling Coalition. “The IRC would like to thank the Alcoa Foundation for its generous support of this important program,” continued Ms. Hamilton.
The IRC will work with all bin grant recipients to facilitate public education of these new or expanded recycling programs as well as to help track increased recycling rates at each venue.
“We know that the more convenient it is to recycle, the more likely it is that consumers will make it a habit,” said Beth Schmitt, director of Recycling for Alcoa. “This collaborative initiative with the Indiana Recycling Coalition is another way to encourage aluminum can recycling in away-from-home environments.”
“Right now, about 43 percent of all the aluminum cans used in the U.S. are still going to landfills, and that’s a lot of energy we can’t afford to bury,” Schmitt continued. “Aluminum cans aren’t trash – they’re a manufactured natural resource and the industry wants them back.”
The Alcoa Foundation has strategic focus areas, and this grant connects with one of its goals to increase the number of people who take action to increase environmental sustainability in their daily lives. The used aluminum beverage can is the most recycled consumer material on earth, but recycling rates in the United States lag behind other countries. The program will help Alcoa toward a goal of raising the North American beverage can recycling rate to 75 percent by 2015.
