The American Beverage Association (ABA) • COOK COUNTY, Ill. – American Beverage is investing $161,000 to support new universal, cart-based curbside recycling services for more than 2,700 households in three villages in Cook County, Illinois. The investment—announced ahead of America Recycles Day on November 15—will modernize recycling infrastructure in the underserved villages of Dixmoor, Posen and Phoenix.

Supporting Cook County’s investment in recycling infrastructure, the grant includes recycling education that will directly impact nearly 11,000 residents. The investment will also add new curbside recycling services to existing collection contracts and fund an educational outreach campaign to support residents in improving their recycling practices.

“We are proud to invest in Cook County’s effort to establish effective, universal curbside recycling for its underserved communities,” said Madeline Norris, executive director of the Illinois Beverage Association. “Together, we can make recycling more accessible and ensure our industry’s valuable bottles and cans are remade into new products, as intended.”

This project, in partnership with the innovative sustainability nonprofit The Recycling Partnership, will result in the collection of an estimated 6.7 million pounds of new recyclables over the next decade. This includes nearly 264,000 pounds of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and 87,880 pounds of recycled aluminum, both of which are used to make recyclable cans and bottles.

American Beverage has invested more than $3.5 million across five projects in Illinois and reached 1.2 million residents in Chicago, LaSalle, Rockford, Villa Park and the Villages of Dixmoor, Phoenix and Posen in Cook County. In total, the efforts are projected to yield more than 6.7 million new pounds of recycled plastic in the next 10 years.

Since launching five years ago, Every Bottle Back—an initiative of The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo—has reached 14 million Americans through $28.5 million in funding nationwide. In total, the investments across 49 communities are estimated to yield 705 million new pounds of recycled PET and 43 million more pounds of recycled aluminum over the next decade.

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