How big corporations are appealing to the green crowd with a priority on recycling
In 2010 Americans alone used 38.6 billion glass bottles and 71.9 billion plastic bottles, recycling just 33 percent of the former and 27 percent of the latter. That’s an enormous amount of waste going to landfills. Happily, the two biggest soft drink rivals are vying to do something about it: PepsiCo wants to increase the recycling rate to 50 percent by 2018 and is sweetening its recycling push with bonus points
awarded to customers who use any of the thousands of automated kiosks installed as part of its Dream Machine initiative. And Coca-Cola-owned Honest Tea recently feted participants during its Times Square event, the Great Recycle, with skateboards, concert tickets, yoga mats, and ice-cold bottles of tea. The Great Recycle has gone viral, with a Twitter hashtag, teaser video, and Facebook campaign, which credits people with discount points for each Facebook status they recycle.
Another big name that’s keen to be green: McDonald’s, which reports a 20 percent increase in the amount of cardboard recycled at its U.K. locations—keeping some 85 tons of waste from the landfill—and a 95 percent recycling rate at its Austrian outposts thanks to the McRecycle program.
