St. Joseph Receives Coca Cola Recycling Grant

From the University of St. Joseph:

WEST HARTFORD, CT – Keep America Beautiful and The Coca-Cola Company are working together to address one of the primary barriers to recycling in public spaces by making access to recycling bins more readily available and convenient through the 2016 Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Bin Grant Program. Keep America Beautiful and The Coca-Cola Company recently announced that they will be awarding 60 recycling bins to the University of Saint Joseph, making more bins available so that USJ can recycle right.

The bins will be placed in classrooms, laboratories, and office spaces in McDonough Hall on the University’s West Hartford campus. Kirsten Martin, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biology, who applied for the grant, will assemble a team of students and faculty members to monitor the use of the bins. Martin’s goal is to increase awareness of sustainability issues on campus while getting students involved in environmental initiatives.

In total, the Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Bin Grant Program will provide 3,522 recycling bins to colleges and universities, along with 996 bins to local governments and nonprofit organizations. The recycling bins are made possible through a grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation, the philanthropic arm of The Coca-Cola Company.

Behavioral research has shown that two of the primary barriers that stop people from recycling are the lack of convenient opportunities and confusion about what and how to recycle. In addition to providing more convenient opportunities to recycle, the Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Bin Grant helps to address the issue of confusion by providing bins that incorporate recognized best practices for bin design and labeling.

The 2016 program is expected to result in an estimated 1 million pounds of recyclable materials collected during their first year in use.

To learn more about this initiative, visit Keep America Beautiful at kab.org and The Coca-Cola Foundation at http://www.coca-colagivingback.com.

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