EAGAN, Minn. -- Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and Coca-Cola Recycling LLC (CCR) have inked a partnership with Holiday Stationstores to enable beverage container recycling at Holiday convenience stores around the Twin Cities. Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling and CCR will work with the Recycling Association of Minnesota (RAM) to manage the program.
Large bottle shaped recycling bins will be placed on each fuel island at Holiday Stationstores. Through vocational centers, RAM will employ adults with disabilities to pick up the materials and sort them at the designated sorting facility. Finally, the [image-nocss] collected material will be returned to Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling in Eagan, Minn., to be processed and recycled into new cans and bottles.
The recycling program will be up and running at 10 Twin Cities Holiday locations by the end of October and at all 150 Twin Cities Holiday stores by the end of 2009.
"With Coca-Cola, RAM and the vocational centers, we are offering customers a convenient way to recycle while making a difference for the environment as well," said Holiday Cos. vice president of merchandising Larry Mitchell.
"Coca-Cola is committed to maximizing our use of renewable, reusable and recyclable resources, ultimately recycling the equivalent of 100% of our packaging," said John Burgess, president of CCR. "This partnership will make it convenient for consumers to recycle away from home and it will help Coca-Cola close the loop by recovering more material and using it to increase the recycled content of our packages."
According to RAM director Ellen Telander, "Most Minnesotans recycle at home, but studies show that recycling rates decrease dramatically when people are away from home. We hope this program will reverse that trend."
Bloomington, Minn.-based Holiday Stationstores has 440 stores located throughout 12 states in the northern tier region of the United States: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Alaska. Holiday distinguishes itself in the marketplace through its exceptional Holiday Pantry food programs and is the sole distributor of Blue Planet "clean" gasoline.
Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling, based in Eagan, is an operating unit of Coca-Cola Enterprises, the world's largest marketer, distributor and producer of Coca-Cola products.
Based in Atlanta, CCR is dedicated to recovering and recycling packaging materials used in North America, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, aluminum, cardboard and plastic film. Coca-Cola Recycling is working to recover and recycle the equivalent of 100% of the packaging produced by the Coca-Cola system in the United States.
RAM is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization with more than 200 members from the public, private and nonprofit sectors. It is committed to promoting resource conservation through waste prevention, reuse, recycling, composting and purchasing practices using the most cost-effective and environmentally sound methods available in Minnesota.
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