Dow and Keep America Beautiful Announce 2018 Hefty® EnergyBag® Grant Recipients

Dow and Keep America Beautiful announced they have awarded two $40,000 grants to organizations in Cobb County, Ga., and Lincoln, Neb. The grants will expand a recently launched Hefty® EnergyBag® program in Cobb County and help to establish a new start-up program in Lincoln. The program, which aligns with Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals, offers an innovative approach to diverting plastic waste that are not currently recycled – such as flexible films, foam to-go containers, plastic cups, straws and lids – from landfills by converting the materials into valuable resources.

Dow and Keep America Beautiful jointly announced the Hefty® EnergyBag® grant program in July 2017 and previously awarded grants to organizations in Cobb County and Boise, Idaho. In an effort to continue expanding the program, the organizations reopened the grant in 2018 for a second round of applications from communities across the U.S.

Each community will collect hard-to-recycle plastic materials and provide them to approved facilities that have the ability to generate a liquid fuel, such as diesel, using non-combustion conversion technologies. This process extends the life cycle of these plastic materials by creating new energy resources.

In support of these communities, Dow will provide guidelines for implementing the program, and assist in initial planning, implementation and measurements to confirm the quality of collected materials. Grant recipients are ultimately responsible for managing the program and engaging with key community stakeholders.

To date, Hefty® EnergyBag® curbside and non-curbside programs, including the two full-scale programs in the Omaha metropolitan area and Boise, Idaho, have collected more than 328,900 orange bags and diverted more than 213 tons of hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills.

To learn more about the Hefty® EnergyBag® program, visit www.heftyenergybag.com. , www.dow.com.