by Meagan Smith
Tuesday, November 15th, marked America Recycles Day (ARD). As someone who cares deeply about keeping the planet green, and as a PepsiCo Green ambassador, this is an important day to recognize. To give you a little background, ARD was created by national nonprofit and Dream Machine collaborator, Keep America Beautiful. The milestone is supported by many national and local nonprofits as well as sponsoring businesses, including PepsiCo and the Dream Machine recycling initiative. ARD is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to the promotion of recycling in the United States, and this November 15th marks the fourteenth year that Americans will host events across the country to help clean up communities and raise awareness of the importance of recycling.
This year, the Dream Machine recycling program commemorated ARD with an on-the-ground street team activation in downtown Washington D.C. Our nation’s capitol was the first municipality to join the program and there are now nearly 360 Dream Machine bins throughout downtown.
While this was an exciting event that focused on raising awareness of the Dream Machine, it’s my hope that our presence encouraged a few people to stop and think about recycling and how our everyday actions can make a real difference for the planet. Did you know that if every household in the U.S. recycled just three more plastic bottles a month, we could divert more than 23 million pounds of plastic from landfills?
Through the Dream Machine program, we’re not only aiming to increase the U.S. beverage container recycle rate to 50 percent by 2018, but also taking an exciting approach to recycling so that it is convenient and rewarding.
There are now nearly 4,000 Dream Machines in 37 states at high-traffic locations, including colleges and universities, gas stations and grocery stores. Not only does the program offer personal rewards for each bottle and can recycled in the interactive kiosk, but the more plastic bottles and aluminum cans recycled in a Dream Machine, the more support PepsiCo will provide to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), a national program offering free training in entrepreneurship to post-9/11 veterans with disabilities. In fact, just last week, on Veterans Day, PepsiCo announced its second $500,000 donation to the EBV.
I’m proud of PepsiCo’s support of America Recycles Day and applaud all those who took part in recycling events across the county. I hope that the actions taken and attention given to ARD will carry on not just on each November 15th, but throughout the year.
