American Beverage Association Celebrates America Recycles Day

Beverage industry announces milestones in its commitment to eliminate waste to landfill from facilities

Washington, DC /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ - America's leading non-alcoholic beverage companies are celebrating America Recycles Day with the latest gains in their mission to eliminate all waste going to landfills from their U.S. production facilities.

There are now 15 plants that have achieved "zero waste," which means that 100% of all waste generated at these facilities is being diverted from landfills. Several other plants are close to eliminating all facilities waste as well.

The entire beverage industry has made significant progress in diverting waste from landfills and toward productive uses.  Nearly 160 facilities from Hawaii to New England are now diverting 94 percent of their waste from landfills by using innovative approaches and partnerships to minimize their environmental impact. These facilities are large, averaging 200 employees per site.

Measures put in place by The Coca-Cola Company, Dr Pepper Snapple Group and PepsiCo diverted 330,000 tons of waste from landfills in 2015.  For every ton of waste sent to landfill for disposal, 15 tons were diverted from landfills.

The current level of industry waste diversion exceeds the 90 percent rate of waste diversion that some environmental organizations view as meeting the definition of "zero waste."  The beverage companies' aim however is to eliminate waste to landfill from all its U.S. production facilities.

"Beverage companies have always been leaders in the development of new and innovative ways to reduce industry impact on the environment," said Susan Neely, American Beverage Association president and CEO. "We're increasing water efficiency at bottling plants, we're reducing emissions from our truck fleets and we are recycling more and wasting less."

Among our latest innovations:

• Cutting down on energy and materials usage by making product packaging lighter, and reusing transportation packaging.
• Reducing water usage by incorporating state-of-the-art wastewater treatment and the reuse of process water from manufacturing and distribution facilities.
• Minimizing energy usage and fleet emissions by employing hybrid trucks and relying on highly efficient, centralized production and distribution systems for products.
• Using green technology – such as roof-top solar – at bottling plants.
• Saving energy usage through high efficiency refrigeration technology.

To learn more about how the beverage industry is working to protect the environment, visit http://innovationnaturally.org/.

The American Beverage Association is the trade association representing the broad spectrum of companies that manufacture and distribute non-alcoholic beverages in the United States.  For more information on ABA, please visit the association's Web site at www.ameribev.org or call the ABA communications team at (202) 463-6770.