Recycling of Used Beverage Can Surpassed 160 Million Milestone

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Bottle major PepsiCo has announced that its 2017-’18 Recycle Rally event ended in huge success, by collecting 160 million recycled beverage containers from participating schools across the U.S. Launched in 2010, the nationwide school recycling program for K-12 students received enrolments from as many as 4,000 schools this year. The program yielded positive results by encouraging recycling habits among students and pushing more schools to start recycling.

The collection recorded tremendous increase during the year. According to PepsiCo Recycling, the collection of 160 million containers represents a jump of nearly 450% from the previous year.

From the various participating schools, Arnold Elementary School, San Antonio was selected as the winner, to whom the grand prize money of $20,000 was awarded. The school recycled nearly 8.7 million bottles and cans during the school year, which is the highest in the program’s history. The prize money of $15,000 for second-place winner was awarded to Pine Forest High School, Fayetteville, North Carolina. The winners were selected from various contests and promotions during the program.

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According to Tom Mooradian, manager of Environmental Sustainability at PepsiCo, Recycle Rally has not only increased students’ interests in recycling, but has also served as a tool to develop leadership skills. The Recycle Rally program along with various other partnership campaigns have made significant contributions in increasing recycling rates across the nation, by inspiring students to become proud and frequent recyclers, Mooradian added.

The promotions involved small prizes ranging from $10 to $200 for simple actions to promote recycling. Also, large prizes ranging from $50 to $1,000 were awarded to outstanding ideas, projects and campaigns. The program started on 1st Sep, 2018 and continued until end-April this year.