America’s Beverage Companies Invest $471,200 to Improve Recycling Across Three Massachusetts Communities

BOSTON, Mass. - American Beverage today announced a $471,200 investment through its Every Bottle Back initiative, alongside The Recycling Partnership, to improve curbside recycling services in South Hadley, Longmeadow and Arlington, Massachusetts. These investments will enhance local recycling infrastructure by expanding access to standardized recycling carts, so that more bottles and cans are collected and remade.

Every Bottle Back has now invested more than $1 million in Massachusetts alone, expanding recycling access to thousands more residents across the Commonwealth. With the more than 25,000 carts in this project, America's beverage companies have delivered 1 million recycling carts nationwide.

"With this project, Massachusetts' beverage companies have now invested more than $1 million to expand recycling access across Massachusetts - helping thousands of families across the Commonwealth recycle more and recycle better," said Steve Boksanski, executive director of the Massachusetts Beverage Association. "These smart, proven investments are better-way solutions that keep valuable materials out of landfills and support cleaner, more sustainable communities for all."

The new projects will support key improvements in each community:

• South Hadley will transition from manual bin collection to automated, every-other-week curbside recycling service with new 95-gallon standardized carts for approximately 6,600 households.
• Longmeadow will upgrade to automated dual-stream collection through the introduction of new 48- and 64-gallon carts to approximately 5,500 households.
• Arlington will modernize curbside services with standardized 64-gallon recycling carts for 17,000 households and introduce universal carts for solid waste collection.

Together, the three projects are expected to serve more than 78,800 residents and capture an estimated 15 million pounds of recyclables over the next decade. This includes about 600,000 pounds of PET plastic and about 200,000 pounds of aluminum - two materials commonly used in beverage containers.

These latest investments build on Every Bottle Back's ongoing commitment to recycling improvements in the Commonwealth. To date, the initiative has also contributed $884,000 to four other Massachusetts communities: Danvers, Falmouth, Methuen and Shrewsbury, pushing Massachusetts investments by the beverage industry over $1 million with the latest announcement. With the additional investments in South Hadley, Longmeadow and Arlington announced today, these projects have expanded recycling access for more than 223,000 residents and will keep an estimated 2.9 million pounds of PET plastic and 960,000 pounds of aluminum out of landfills.

This project represents another step forward for Every Bottle Back-an initiative of The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo-that launched in 2019. In total, the investments across 58 communities are estimated to yield nearly 713 million new pounds of recycled PET and 45 million more pounds of recycled aluminum over the next decade.

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