The Every Bottle Back initiative turned one year old this week and is off to a successful start. Since last year, America’s leading beverage companies and their partners have invested in modernization projects in Texas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin that will help more than 349,000 households recycle nearly 11 million new pounds of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic for remaking into new bottles.  Over the course of the 10-year commitment The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) and PepsiCo will be investing the equivalent of nearly a half-billion dollars to reduce the beverage industry’s plastic footprint. 

Katherine Lugar, president and CEO of the American Beverage Association affirmed that, “Every Bottle Back is our commitment to reduce our plastic footprint and ensure our bottles don’t end up as waste in oceans, rivers or landfills.”

This massive effort to decrease our use of new plastic, reinforce the value and increase collection of our 100% recyclable bottles has the support of environmental and sustainability leaders across the country including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which is helping measure the industry’s progress in reducing its plastic footprint, The Recycling Partnership, which is funding collection infrastructure to expand access and supporting consumer education so households can recycle better, and Closed Loop Partners, the leading investment firm focused on the development of the circular economy and recycling infrastructure in the United States.  

This landmark initiative builds on the latest commitments by the beverage industry to reduce our plastic footprint, such as support for passage of the federal Recycle and  Recover acts to bolster recycling education and improve recycling infrastructure, and the ABA’s joining of the U.S. Plastics Pact to work toward a circular economy for plastics.

To learn more about Every Bottle Back, visit www.EveryBottleBack.org.