Nation’s Capital is First City to Partner with PepsiCo Dream Machine Recycling Initiative

PepsiCo today announced a partnership with the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) and the District Department of Public Works (DPW) that will make Washington, D.C. the nation’s first city to partner with the Dream Machine recycling initiative. A total of 363 recycling bins will be placed throughout the DowntownDC BID area, offering a convenient and rewarding recycling option for people while they are on-the-go and advancing the BID’s Greening Downtown DC initiative.

PepsiCo’s Dream Machine recycling initiative, which aims to place both interactive kiosks and bins, was created in partnership with Waste Management (NYSE: WM) and Keep America Beautiful.

With approximately 1,500 Dream Machines located in more than 20 states to date, the program aims to increase the U.S. beverage container recycling rate from 34 to 50 percent by 2018.

“This latest public-private partnership achieves the BID goal of providing citywide approaches to environmental issues while enhancing the quality of the visitor experience Downtown,” said Richard H. Bradley, executive director of the DowntownDC BID.  ”This partnership will have real results. We are projecting a diversion of more than one million pounds of recyclable material annually from Downtown waste.”

“I am happy to welcome PepsiCo to the partnership between DPW and the DowntownDC BID,” said DPW Director, William O. Howland, Jr. “By contributing more than 300 new recycling cans, PepsiCo gives us a tremendous boost toward reaching our 45 percent diversion rate goal.”

The DowntownDC BID’s Safety/Hospitality and Maintenance workers, known as SAMs, will be responsible for maintaining the bins and serving as on-the-street liaisons who educate people about public recycling and the Dream Machine program.

Jeremy Cage, senior vice president of Innovation and Insights at PepsiCo and head of the Dream Machine recycling initiative, commented, “We are thrilled that our nation’s capital is the first city to offer the Dream Machine program to its community. With collaborative partnerships like this one, we are confident that we can help provoke behavioral change by making recycling more convenient, and we encourage others to join us as we strive to make positive change for our planet.”

For all the bottles and cans recycled in a Dream Machine bin or kiosk in Washington, D.C., and across the nation, PepsiCo will make a contribution to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), a national program offering free, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management to post-9/11 U.S. veterans with disabilities.

“The unemployment rate among young veterans today is 20 percent—its highest rate in the post-9/11 era,” said J. Michael Haynie, EBV founder and assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management. “Bringing the Dream Machine program to Washington, D.C. represents an opportunity for the city and its residents to play a direct role in helping our returning veterans create their own jobs in the most American way possible, through entrepreneurship.”

To learn more about the Dream Machine program, visit www.facebook.com/DreamMachine. To download an image of the Dream Machine bin, visit www.multimedia.pepsico.com.

About the Dream Machine

The Dream Machine recycling initiative, introduced on Earth Day 2010, will make thousands of new recycling kiosks and bins available in popular public venues such as gas stations, stadiums, and public parks. Dream Machine kiosks are computerized receptacles that include a personal reward system that allows consumers to collect and redeem points for each bottle or can they recycle in the kiosk. The multi-year collaboration with Waste Management enables the local capture and recycling of PET and aluminum, using both technology enabled and non-technology enabled recycling kiosks. The Dream Machines are provided by WM GreenOps, LLC, a subsidiary of Waste Management, and operated by Greenopolis, the first interactive recycling system that brings together online and on-street technologies. People who recycle their beverage containers in kiosks can redeem points they collect and receive awards when they visit www.greenopolis.com.