Rehrig Pacific provides locally manufactured recycling carts

National waste and recycling solutions company Rehrig Pacific will begin rolling out 18,600 new locally made recycling carts in Milwaukee this week in partnership with The Recycling Partnership and Dow. The larger, 95-gallon carts will be replacing residents' current 18-gallon bins, which have not supported the volume of recyclables that residents are generating.

Rehrig Pacific worked in collaboration with national nonprofit The Recycling Partnership, which is based in Falls Church, Virginia, which provided the city with a $649,000 grant to improve its collection services. Rehrig also partnered with Dow, which provided a resin donation that allowed the carts to be purchased at a 95 percent cost savings. The new, wheeled carts roll easily to the collection point, provide more capacity for recyclables and reduce litter by protecting residents' recyclables from the elements.

Each residence within the bin-serviced area will have a cart delivered with educational materials enclosed. According to The Recycling Partnership, this change and moving to every other week collection spring through fall will greatly increase recycling capacity for residents.

Rehrig Pacific is committed to maintaining shorter freight lanes, as the carts were manufactured at Rehrig's Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, plant, just 40 miles from Milwaukee. This close proximity has resulted in less carbon dioxide emissions and fewer transportation costs. Rehrig reports that its seven manufacturing facilities are strategically located throughout the U.S., decreasing the distance it takes to get products to customers and reducing the amount of carbon emissions released into the atmosphere.

Each year, Milwaukee residents recycle more than 50 million pounds of materials through the city's curbside program. Milwaukee's recycling transformation is expected to yield more than 10 million new pounds of recyclables each year.

"This partnership between the city of Milwaukee, The Recycling Partnership, Dow and Rehrig Pacific was an exciting opportunity for these four groups to come together to create a sustainable solution for this community," says Marc Scott, vice president environmental sales at Rehrig Pacific. "The results are often the most successful when we're able to combine the expertise and resources of diverse partners like this."

"The Recycling Partnership is honored to work together on this partnership with the city of Milwaukee, Dow and Rehrig Pacific to make this project a reality," says Rob Taylor, director of grants and community development for The Recycling Partnership. "We'd also like to express our gratitude to the PepsiCo Foundation for their financial support to improve equitable access to recycling. Thanks to the collaboration of these stakeholders, Milwaukee households will soon be on their way to better protecting our planet by wasting less and recycling more."

Rehrig Pacific's work in Milwaukee is the latest in a long series of sustainability innovations from the firm. Rehrig Pacific reports that it routinely works directly with customers to develop customized closed-loop and circular plastic economy solutions tailor-made to achieve bold sustainability goals.