Amcor and partners in recycling initiative award grant to City of Columbia

Amcor, together with Coca Cola, Alcoa, and other industry partners under the Recycling Partnership, a collaborative, industry-funded effort designed to boost residential recycling in the U.S., officially awarded the first public grant to the City of Columbia, S.C.  

The funding, amounting to $300,000, will support the Recycling Partnership’s inaugural project in Columbia, where the city’s residential curbside recycling program will be modernized.

Amcor became a partner in the Recycling Partnership in July 2014 and made the donation through the Amcor Community Program, which provides strategic partnership grants to organizations that share the company’s passion for responsible packaging and helping people in need.

The Recycling Partnership provides the initial funding to help communities prioritize recycling among other important municipal projects, according to Charlie Schwarze, global sustainability manager at Amcor Rigid Plastics. Such investment also serves another purpose by enabling Amcor to invest in a community where it operates and also increases the amount of valuable recycled PET material for future conversion. Amcor presently operates a manufacturing facility in nearby Blythewood, S.C.

Amcor’s Rigid Plastics unit is joined by the Alcoa Foundation, American Chemistry Council, American Forest & Paper Association, the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers, Ball Corp., Carton Council, Coca-Cola, SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, and Sonoco Products as financial supporters of this groundbreaking effort designed to leverage one-time private investments with public funding to support recycling efforts in several cities.

The Recycling Partnership has selected four partner cities to launch the effort. Along with Columbia, they include Richmond, Va., and Florence, Ala. A fourth city will be announced later this year. These municipalities will receive technical and financial assistance.

Columbia is converting its recycling program from a bin-based to a cart-based collection program. As part of the program, some 34,000 households will receive 96-gallon carts, technical assistance, and recycling education/outreach. During the next 10 years, Columbia’s improved recycling efforts are expected to produce a savings of 236 million gallons of water, 1.2 million BTUs of energy, and 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases.