Keep America Beautiful Launches Second Annual Recycle-Bowl Competition

Stamford, Conn.-based Keep America Beautiful (KAB), the nation’s largest volunteer-based community action and education organization, is teaming up with Nestlé Waters North America on the Recycle-Bowl youth recycling competition, which is in its second year.

In its inaugural year, more than 1,200 elementary, middle and high schools, representing more than 500,000 students, participated in the program that teaches students about waste reduction and environmental responsibility through in-school recycling. Sixty-seven percent of participating schools saw a “significant” or “some” increase in the amount of materials their school recycled during the competition time frame.

Registration for the incentive-based recycling competition is open to all U.S. schools at the Recycle-Bowl website. The competition runs from Oct. 15, 2012, through Nov. 9, 2012, culminating around America Recycles Day. Participating schools will track and report how much recyclable material they collect. At the close of the four-week competition, the school in each state that collects the most recyclables per capita will win $1,000. A national champion will be chosen from among the statewide winners to receive an additional grand prize valued at $2,500.

“Inspiring young people to recycle at school reinforces the importance of recycling everywhere, whether at home or on-the-go,” says Matt McKenna, president and CEO of KAB. “And while students are becoming better recyclers, their school facilities are also increasing their capacity to handle and recover more recyclable materials, thus creating better and more efficient systems for reducing their waste.”

Educational recycling activities will be provided online and through a registration toolkit.

Recycle-Bowl is sponsored by Nestlé Waters North America.

"Nestle Waters North America is eager to see more recycling take place in our schools,” says Heidi Paul, vice president of corporate affairs for Nestle Waters North America. “We’re proud to partner with Keep America Beautiful on this important recycling initiative.”