DAVENPORT, Iowa – American Beverage today announced that Scott County, Iowa, has been selected to receive an investment to support crucial recycling infrastructure upgrades to the Waste Commission of Scott County’s Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) operating systems. The investment is being made as part of the Every Bottle Back initiative, a beverage industry-led effort to reduce the industry’s use of new plastic and keep bottles out of nature where they don’t belong, in collaboration with Closed Loop Partners (CLP) and the Waste Commission of Scott County (WCSC).

Through this unique partnership, Scott County has been awarded $600,000 from the beverage industry for equipment upgrades such as three new optical sorters, which will increase material sorting capacity of recyclable materials by an estimated four million pounds annually. This modernization will also increase revenues generated from the sale of recyclables like plastic bottles that reprocessors turn into material for new products.

In addition to the funds invested by the beverage industry’s Every Bottle Back initiative, additional investments from Closed Loop Partners will total five million for the WCSC to improve and expand recycling infrastructure.

“Strong partnerships between municipalities and the private sector are critical to our shared goal of boosting recycling rates and keeping plastic of out of nature,” said Katherine Lugar, president and chief executive officer of American Beverage. “America’s leading beverage companies are thrilled to be making this investment in Scott County’s recycling infrastructure and working with county officials to improve efficiency and increase capacity of the recycling stream. By continuing this important work together, we can make Scott County an even better place to call home.”

“The Iowa Beverage Association is committed to expanding recycling infrastructure and reducing the amount of virgin plastic across the state,” said John Otterbeck, chairman of the Iowa Beverage Association (IBA). “Our member companies are constantly looking for ways to be part of the solution that ensures our bottles and cans are remade as intended. Through this partnership and with these investments, we will be able to do just that. We are grateful for this collaboration and look forward to advancing this meaningful work on behalf of Iowans.”

“Investing in modernizing recycling infrastructure is critical to ensuring that valuable materials are pulled back into supply chains at end of life, and never go to waste,” said Jennifer Louie, Executive Director at Closed Loop Partners. “Scott County has made significant progress over the years to advance resilient recycling systems. We are proud to continue our support of their work, grow material recovery capabilities, and strengthen local circular economy infrastructure.”

“Scott County is the third largest county in Iowa and WCSC’s service area reaches 75,000 households,” said Kathy Morris, Director of the Waste Commission of Scott County. “The new equipment helps us increase our tonnage and diversion rates so that we’re diverting more waste from the landfill and into efficient recycling systems.”

This project is estimated to yield 52 million pounds of recyclable materials over 10 years, of which nearly one million pounds will be aluminum and more than five million pounds will be the most recyclable plastic in the country, PET plastic, that we use for our bottles. These upgrades will help decrease contamination and improve the quality and efficiency of sorting to boost the amount of recyclable materials that can be remade.

Scott County is the latest of more than two dozen projects that the beverage industry has committed to fund under Every Bottle Back. To date, these investments total $19.6 million in committed funding and are estimated to yield 719 million more pounds of recycled PET over 10 years.

 

About the Iowa Beverage Association:

The Iowa Beverage Association is the trade association representing Iowa’s non-alcoholic beverage producers, bottlers and distributors. With a direct economic impact of $1.9 billion, Iowa's beverage industry employs more than 3,000 workers throughout the state. Learn more at www.iowabev.org. 

About American Beverage’s Every Bottle Back initiative: 

The Every Bottle Back initiative is an integrated and comprehensive initiative by America’s leading beverage companies alongside sustainability leaders Closed Loop Partners, The Recycling Partnership and World Wildlife Fund, designed to improve plastics circularity. This effort supports individual sustainability commitments undertaken by The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo.  

Learn more about Every Bottle Back at www.EveryBottleBack.org. 

 

To schedule an interview, please contact American Beverage’s press office at media@americanbeverage.org.