BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Honest Tea®, the nation’s top-selling organic bottled tea company, has announced upcoming dates for “The Great Recycle,” its national recycling initiative to help boost recycling rates which for years have hovered just above 30 percent. In 2013, The Great Recycle is confirmed to make stops in Washington D.C., Texas, New York, Vermont and Washington with additional dates expected to be added in the coming weeks. These stops are an expansion of the tour which has already visited New York City, Seattle, Rochester and West Palm Beach, collecting more than 32,000 beverage containers along the way. The Great Recycle is part of Honest Tea’s commitment by 2020 to be part of a national system that supports the recycling of every beverage container produced.
“The Great Recycle is a natural expansion of the environmentally-conscious activities we’ve spearheaded including The Drink Pouch Brigade, an up-cycling initiative we developed with Terracycle in 2007,” said Honest Tea’s co-founder and TeaEO Seth Goldman. “Our Great Recycle events create a fun, festive atmosphere that educate and inspire people to recycle on a regular basis—it’s a great way for Honest Tea to continue being part of the solution.”
Confirmed dates in April 2013 include:
April 17-18: The Great Recycle at Earth Month at Union Station,
Washington, D.C.
April 20-21: Earth Day Dallas, Dallas, TX*
April
21: Earth Day New York Celebration, Union Square, NYC
June
7-8: Strolling of the Heifers – Brattleboro, VT**
July 18-21:
All Good Music Festival - Thornville, OH
August 2-3: The
Seattle Great Recycle – Seattle Center, Seattle, WA
At each The Great Recycle event, which will feature either the original 30-foot tall or brand-new 12-foot tall recycling bin, Honest Tea will issue an open-call for people to come down to trade in their empty beverage containers for items such as t-shirts, yoga mats, gift-certificates, bicycles, and more. While one bottle recycled will garner a smaller item such as a sticker or Honest Tea branded bracelet, larger numbers of bottles recycled will yield a bigger reward, such as a bicycles and restaurant gift-certificates, redeemable at the on-site rewards redemption booth (while supplies last).
Honest Tea will partner with local recycling companies at each location to ensure that the containers collected are recycled in accordance with local laws. The beverage company will also partner with national and local environmental organizations to help educate and inspire participants to make recycling a regular routine of their daily lives.
For those unable to make it to any of The Great Recycle events, Honest Tea is providing another opportunity for people to get involved by making a weekly recycling pledge and recycling an old Facebook post at www.TheGreatRecycle.com.
Honest Tea partnered with TerraCycle in 2007 to create the Drink Pouch Brigade, a program which recycles drink pouches and ‘upcycles’ them into items such as pencil cases, book bags, and notebooks. Since 2007, more than 150 million pouches, including nearly one million Honest Kids pouches, have been diverted from landfills. In 2008, Honest Tea partnered with Bethesda Green and The Coca-Cola Company to install 33 recycling bins throughout downtown Bethesda. Within the first year the bins collected more than 4,000 lbs. of recyclable beverage containers.
Read more about Honest Tea’s commitment to sustainability and the planet at http://www.honesttea.com/community/sustainability/missionreport/pdfs/2012_Mission_Report.pdf.
(** neither the 30-foot or 12-foot recycling bin will be present)
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About Honest Tea
Honest Tea® seeks to create and promote great-tasting, healthier, organic beverages and extend economic opportunities to communities in need. Founded in 1998 in Bethesda, MD, Honest Tea is the nation's top-selling organic bottled tea company specializing in beverages that are ‘just a tad’ sweet. Honest Tea's product lines include: Honest Tea ready-to-drink bottled teas, Honest Ade®, Honest Kids® organic thirst quenchers, and new Honest Fizz® naturally sweetened zero calorie sodas. All tea, juice drinks and kids varieties are USDA Organic and all tea varieties are Fair Trade Certified™. In addition to being ranked by The Huffington Post as one of the leading "8 Revolutionary Socially Responsible Companies," Honest Tea is a multi-year winner of awards from the Alliance for Workplace Excellence. Honest Tea has won Men’s Health “Best Green Tea” for five years running and in 2012 was named one of Women’s Health Magazine’s “125 Best Packaged Foods for Women.” Honest Tea is an independent operating unit of The Coca-Cola Company. For more information: www.honesttea.com.
