Coca-Cola Working To Fix Recycling

Coca-Cola has vowed to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can it sells by 2030. But it won't be easy. To reach this goal, Coke needs to make its packages fully recyclable, and persuade people to recycle correctly, according to CNN reports.

For that to work, Coke customers must have sufficient recycling infrastructure — so the company is trying to fix recycling systems in the communities it serves.

The Coca Cola Foundation recently announced that it is giving $5.4 million in grants to a number of environmental organizations, including the Green Blue Institute in Orlando, Keep Houston Beautiful and the Boston Parks and Recreation Foundation.

About $4.15 million of the funds is going to the Recycling Partnership, a national nonprofit group that uses corporate funding to help develop recycling infrastructure. The Partnership is using those funds to help improve recycling in Atlanta.

The effort will begin in Atlanta with a "feet on the street" campaign that deploys city employees and temporary workers to check curb-side household recycling bins for contaminated items.

Inside facilities, cleaning crews can make it easier for their building occupants to recycle by suggesting a program that they will actually use.

According to a Contracting Profits article, a strong recycling program, built on knowledge of human behavior and formed with some research into who building occupants are, can reduce what is going into the landfill in just months.

For example, when Porter Industries Inc., Loveland, Colorado, was asked to come up with ideas to implement recycling, the company included recycle bins at desks, so occupants could single-stream their plastics, aluminum and cans in one receptacle. Trash bins were downsized, and Porter staff shifted to taking trash twice a week and recycling three times a week.

Porter's efforts resulted in a 50- to 60-percent reduction in volume in what was leaving the facility and going to a landfill — from people who had never recycled.

The University of Washington implemented something similar. According to a Facility Cleaning Decisions article, the program dubbed "MiniMax" was implemented in 1990 and not only includes a comprehensive recycling program, but encourages overall waste reduction.

In general, placement of receptacles has to be convenient and make sense for occupants based on traffic and behavior patterns.