CMI: Mardi Gras Recycling
A luminum Beverage Can Recycling Effort at Mardi Gras Provides Money for Charity, Diverts Aluminum from Landfill and Into New Cans By Scott Breen, CMI Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) catalyzed a partnership with a variety of local organizations to recycle more aluminum beverage cans during Mardi Gras 2023. Instead of going to landfill, many thousands of aluminum beverage cans were sold for revenue that CMI doubled and was given to three charitable partners, and the aluminum in those cans will now be available to be turned into new cans. In total, 142,974 used beverage cans (UBC) were recycled and $3,854 (UBC market value of $1,927 plus CMI financial match) was generated from the sale of these cans to a New Orleans metal recycling facility run by EMR . Since 93 percent of recycled UBCs become new cans, these cans will almost certainly be turned into new cans. Further, more recycled aluminum in beverage cans means the industry can build on its average 73 percent recycled content and lower its greenhouse gas emissions. “In fact, the carbon emission savings from recycling the cans collected in this initiative is equivalent to the emissions from driving a car a little more than 35,000 miles.”
The Mardi Gras pilot recycling initiative, Recycle Dat, collected UBCs in two ways:
1. Having 4 recycling hubs and 10 can-only receptacles at strategic points along the most-used parade route during the daytime parades for the two weekends before Mardi Gras Tuesday. Volunteers staffed these strategic points, as well as used a variety of mechanisms to get empty beverage cans from paradegoers in the crowd. These mechanisms included specially designed backpacks for people to directly insert their used cans for recycling, over-sized shopping carts, and grabbers to easily pick up UBCs off the ground. 2. Encouraging people to directly drop off UBCs at the centrally located EMR metal recycling facility in Mid-City New Orleans. UBC collection during the initiative supported local charities and allowed people to earn extra cash. CMI doubled all the revenue generated from selling the UBCs collected along the parade route. The money raised was split between three local charities—Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, Louisiana SPCA, and New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. CMI also doubled the market rate payout for UBCs brought directly to EMR, and redeemers could either put the money toward the three local charities or keep it. The structure of Recycle Dat’s can recycling component leveraged something that only aluminum beverage cans are able to support given its relatively high economic value.
Scott Breen of Can Manufacturers Institute and Brett Davis of Grounds Krewe with the used beverage cans collected during the first weekend of operation at one recycling hub along the Uptown Mardi Gras parade route.
FUNDAMETALS Newsletter
[6] Q1 2023
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