For more than 50 years, Earth Day has provided an opportunity for us to celebrate our beautiful planet. This Earth Day, April 22, and throughout the month of April, the Illinois Beverage Association (IBA) is reinforcing our industry’s longstanding commitment to protecting our environment through sustainable solutions, reducing our plastic footprint and helping create a more circular economy for recyclables.
The beverage industry has made significant investments that have greatly improved the collection of our 100 percent recyclable plastic bottles. Our Every Bottle Back initiative is shepherding nearly a half-billion dollars to increase the amount of plastic that is collected and remade into new bottles, and The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo – in collaboration with environmental leaders World Wildlife Fund, Closed Loop Partners and The Recycling Partnership – are funding modernizations of recycling infrastructure in local communities.
The IBA is committed to getting our bottles back so they don’t wind up where they don’t belong, like rivers, streams, parks and landfills and are instead remade into new bottles in a closed-loop system.
Earth Day is a reminder that we need to protect and preserve our natural environment year-round. The people of your local beverage companies who work and live in cities and towns throughout Illinois share the goal of clean, healthy and beautiful communities, and our businesses will do their part to keep it that way.
Rob Nash is executive director of the Illinois Beverage Association.
