For more than three years, the city has lacked a plastic bottle recycling program. With a recent water crisis plaguing the city and an increased need for bottled drinking water for residents, this recycling project will help to ensure plastic bottles are being disposed of properly and kept out of landfills and waterways.
BlueTriton Brands is contributing funding support so more recycling locations can be added throughout the City of Jackson to accept PET #1 plastic bottles. Currently, there are 15 PET recycling locations collecting plastic bottles, with more to be added.
"At BlueTriton, we design our products and processes to keep valuable packaging materials in circulation through reuse and recycling, however, there are critical gaps in recycling collection systems which limit how often common packaging materials are recycled and made into new products," said Ed Ferguson, Chief Sustainability Officer at BlueTriton Brands. "We are ecstatic to partner with Replenysh on this project because it will reduce waste in the Jackson community and represents an important step for improving collection and recycling of packaging like bottles, cardboard, and plastic film."
Since the project began the first week of September 2022, 1,723 pounds of PET plastic bottle containers have been collected. Other items have also been recovered:
- Over 2+ tons of material have been kept out of landfills and prepped for reuse
- 2,355 lbs. of old corrugated cardboard (OCC) recovered
- 298 lbs. of plastic film sheets (LDPE) recovered
"With hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles being distributed for safe drinking water, we wanted to do the right thing to prevent another crisis with more plastic sent to landfill," says Clark Dinnison, Head of Product at Replenysh. "By partnering with Keep Jackson Beautiful and locations across town, collection infrastructure was set up in a matter of days to ensure the bottles get recycled and turned back into new bottles. The exciting part is that this solution isn't temporary, and Jackson will be able to enjoy a convenient and transparent recycling program indefinitely."
