Every Bottle Back coalition to invest nearly $3 million in D-FW recycling - The Dallas Morning News

The nation’s three largest distributors of plastic bottles will invest nearly $3 million in Dallas-Fort Worth recycling infrastructure, education and collection, the American Beverage Association announced Thursday.

The investment is part of Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper’s $100 million commitment to decreasing plastic waste through its Every Bottle Back initiative.

“This is going to be the very first rollout that will allow us to fulfill our mission of every bottle back,” American Beverage Association president and CEO Katherine Lugar told The Dallas Morning News. “We’re gonna reduce the need for new plastic, keep our bottles out of the environment and ensure that our bottles don’t end up in places they don’t belong with these investments.”

About $2 million of the investment will go directly to updating the Balcones material collection facility in Farmers Branch. Those upgrades are being modeled after Balcones’ sister facility in the Austin area. The Farmers Branch facility will get optical sorters, robotic arms and AI-driven machinery to better separate recyclable plastics, according to the beverage association.

The beverage association’s partners include the World Wildlife Fund, social impact investment firm Closed Loop Partners and The Recycling Partnership.

Closed Loop Partners has seen D-FW as a prime region for investment for some time and became the majority owner of Balcones Resources in October. Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper are all investors in the firm’s Closed Loop Fund focused on scaling recycling infrastructure.

The rest of the investment will fund new recycling bins, collection vehicles and on-site educational materials for multifamily housing complexes in Dallas. Expanded access to recycling is expected to benefit nearly 50,000 residents.

Multifamily housing complexes in Dallas are required to provide recycling services to tenants starting this month. The beverage association said its investment can help those housing complexes reach compliance.

Dallas is the first city to receive money since the Every Bottle Back initiative was announced in October. Texas was expected to be one of the four regions targeted due to its concentration of plants that recycle PET plastic.

Beverage association members, including Plano-based Keurig Dr Pepper, all have corporate sustainability goals to reach that’s fueling the longtime competitors’ unlikely collaboration. Keurig Dr Pepper’s goal is to use recycled plastics in 30% of its packaging by 2025, Pepsi wants to use it in 33% of products by 2025 and Coke has pledged half of its bottles will be made from recycled materials by 2030.

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As part of the investment, the beverage association also is partnering with Fort Worth to provide educational materials and the North Central Texas Council of Governments to bolster its existing “Know What to Throw” public service campaign.

The association declined to cite specific goals for how much recycled plastic it hoped to collect.

“We know we’re not going to solve the global problem of plastics in the environment on our own,” Lugar said. “But we do hope that working across industry with fierce competitors and with the biggest environmental partners will serve as a catalyst for others to do more in this space as well.”

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Every Bottle Back coalition to invest nearly $3 million in D-FW recycling - The Dallas Morning News
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