Have you seen these reverse vending machines at local colleges?

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We’ve all seen the blue recycling bins across college campuses, offices or around Birmingham. But have you ever seen a Reverse Vending Machine (RVM)? It’s a new spin on recycling and part of an exciting initiative by The Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola Bottling Company UNITED. 

We sat down with the Coca-Cola team to learn all about RVMs and more sustainability efforts. Here’s what we learned and where you can find these cool machines.

RVMs on Alabama’s + Auburn’s campuses

The Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola UNITED seek to educate students and consumers on the company’s sustainability efforts and goals.

Part of this campaign includes putting RVMs on college campuses.

“We have good partnerships with Alabama and Auburn—mostly because they’re set up with a strong recycling center and these schools are good candidates to make strides with the RVMs.”

Tracy Brincefield, Director, Colleges & Universities, The Coca-Cola Company

Currently, there are four RVMs on both Alabama’s and Auburn’s campuses.

“Within this partnership, we look not to just be a beverage provider—we want to work with them on different initiatives.

Sustainability, specifically recycling, is very important to us as a system and to the universities and their students. We had an opportunity through one of our vendors, ATLAS RVM Systems, to bring a project to Alabama.”

Tracy Brincefield, Director, Colleges & Universities, The Coca-Cola Company

Check out the other ways the Coca-Cola team supports sustainability.

What is a reverse vending machine?

So, what is an RVM and how does it work?

An RVM is similar to a typical drink vending machine but with a clever twist. 

Instead of inserting cash, coins or credit cards to purchase a drink, you insert a plastic bottle or aluminum can. 

The result? A recycled product that will soon be remade into something new.

Here’s how the machine works:

• Place your empty bottle or can into the machine.
• A barcode scans, weighs + records whether it’s a bottle or can.
• The item is then crushed + collected into the appropriate bin.
• Once the bins are full, they are taken to a recycling center.

Encouraging recycling on college campuses

I sat down with the Coca-Cola team involved in bringing these machines to local colleges and universities.

They explained that once the bottles or cans are taken to a recycling company, those products then go back into something called the circular economy.

“Circular economy is taking something, recycling it and turning it back into its original self again.

The bottles and cans crushed and sorted in these machines go directly to a recycler to become more bottles and cans.

The circular economy is all about getting it from the recycling point back to a new bottle or can.”

Tammy Stubbs, Corporate Director, Sustainability, Coca-Cola UNITED 

Have you ever noticed the green logo, “Recycle Me Again,” on your DASANI water bottles or the green “I’m 1 100% Recycled Bottle” label on Coca-Cola products? That message means something big—it’s in its second or third life.

That’s the circular economy in action!

“Continuing this process of giving life back to plastic bottles builds out a greater ability to recycle more. We want to encourage people to do that and do it properly.”

Tammy Stubbs, Corporate Director, Sustainability, Coca-Cola UNITED 

Every Bottle Back

The beverage industry as a whole—not just Coca-Cola—are part of an Every Bottle Back initiative.

Spearheaded by the American Beverage Association, this partnership between The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo is investing in community recycling through a $100 million industry fund.

“At the end of the day, we want to teach everyone on each campus that contamination is probably our worst enemy—the mixing of trash with recyclable materials which causes items to be unable to go back through the recycled stream.

These machines are on campus to help students understand how to get it to the true recycled “end zone” rather than in a landfill.”

Jim Winkler, Marketing Asset Manager, Coca-Cola UNITED

See how you can help support the sustainability efforts of The Coca-Cola Company + Coca-Cola UNITED.

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