Recycling Partnership awards grant to South Carolina city

Global packaging producer Amcor, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has joined Coca Cola, Alcoa and other industry partners as the Recycling Partnership, a collaborative, industry-funded effort designed to boost residential recycling in the U.S., officially awards its first public grant to the city of Columbia, South Carolina. The funding will support the Recycling Partnership’s inaugural project in Columbia, where the city’s residential curbside recycling program will be modernized.

Amcor and its partners have invested $300,000 in the project in Columbia.

Amcor joined the Recycling Partnership in July 2014 and made the donation through the Amcor Community Program, which it says provides strategic partnership grants to organizations that share the company’s passion for responsible packaging and helping people in need.

The Recycling Partnership has more than $1 million in funding available for its initial investments.

The grant will be combined with funding from various government entities and other sources.

The Recycling Partnership was formed in 2014 and seeks to leverage grants and technical assistance to transform the U.S. curbside recycling system. Overseen by the Curbside Value Partnership (CVP), the Recycling Partnership seeks to seeds partner dollars from companies and organizations to unlock substantially larger public investments in community recycling programs.

In addition to Amcor, funding partners for the Recycling Partnership include the Alcoa Foundation, the American Forest & Paper Association, the American Chemistry Council, the Association of Plastics Recyclers, Ball Corp., the Carton Council, Coca Cola, SPI the Plastics Industry Trade Association and Sonoco.

Charlie Schwarze, global sustainability manager at Amcor Rigid Plastics, says, “The Recycling Partnership provides the initial funding to help communities prioritize recycling among other important municipal projects. This investment also serves a dual-purpose within Amcor by enabling us to invest in a community where we operate and also increase the amount of valuable recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) material for future conversion.”

Amcor operates a manufacturing facility in nearby Blythewood, South Carolina.

He adds that the Recycling Partnership feels it is important that the city also has financing from other sources, notably city and state funding, which will help to ensure long-term success.

“We’re thrilled about Amcor’s award, which will give us the financial backing to take curbside recycling programs in Columbia and other communities to a new level,” says Curbside Value Partnership Director Keefe Harrison.

Columbia is one of four cities joining the Recycling Partnership’s initial launch. Two of the cities also in the program include Richmond, Virginia, and Florence, Alabama. The fourth city will be announced later in 2015, the Recycling Partnership says.

With the financing, Columbia will convert from a bin-based to a cart-based recyclables collection program. As part of the program, 34,000 households will receive 96-gallon carts, technical assistance and recycling education/outreach.

The Recycling Partnership says projections show that cities receiving Recycling Partnership grants and technical assistance could realistically increase recovery of recyclable materials by more than 200 percent. The city of Columbia, specifically, says it expects to see a 500 percent increase in recovered material.