Dow is again teaming up with national nonprofit and long-standing collaborator Keep America Beautiful® to award up to $125,000 in grants for organizations to establish the Hefty® EnergyBag® program in their communities. The Hefty® EnergyBag® program, a collaboration between Dow and Reynolds Consumer Products, offers an innovative approach to diverting hard-to-recycle plastics – such as chip bags, standup pouches, foam containers, candy wrappers and juice pouches – from landfills and converting the materials into valuable resources.
“We’re pleased to encourage the growth of the Hefty® EnergyBag® Program with grant funding in collaboration with Keep America Beautiful, so that we can recover the value of used plastics that can’t currently be recycled,” said Jon Pyper, associate director of sustainability for Dow.
“The Omaha-area, Boise-area and Cobb County programs have already proven that we can successfully and sustainably divert more plastics from landfills and reuse those molecules. We’re eager to continue expanding this program and to encourage improved recycling in communities throughout the country.”
From inception through March 2019, the Hefty® EnergyBag® program has collected more than 536,700 bags and diverted over 357 tons of hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills – the equivalent of producing approximately 1,700 barrels of diesel fuel from collected materials and eliminating approximately 51 full trash trucks. The Hefty® EnergyBag® grant program demonstrates Dow’s commitment to advancing a circular economy as part of its 2025 Sustainability Goals.