Dow Grant Program Aims to Boost Plastics Recycling

The Dow Chemical Co. has teamed up with national nonprofit, Keep America Beautiful, to award two $50,000 grants for organizations to establish Hefty EnergyBag programs in their communities. The program is an new approach to diverting traditionally non-recycled plastics—like chip bags and juice pouches—from landfills and converting the materials into valuable energy sources.

The grant application is open to municipalities, non-profits, materials recovery facilities, and other qualifying organizations through September 1, 2017. Dow will provide grant recipients with the blueprint to develop a successful Hefty EnergyBag program and will facilitate planning and implementation. Recipients will ultimately manage the programs and solicit involvement of key community stakeholders.

“The Hefty EnergyBag program demonstrates Dow’s commitment to advancing a circular economy, a pillar of our 2025 Sustainability Goals,” Dow Chief Sustainability Officer Neil Hawkins said in a statement. “In partnership with Keep America Beautiful, these grants will enable the growth of this important initiative and show the power of a collaborative blueprint for reducing landfill waste and waste released to the environment, two critical global priorities.”

“At Keep America Beautiful, we look for innovative ways to promote and improve recycling and other approaches to divert waste from landfills,” Brenda Pulley, senior vice president of recycling for Keep America Beautiful, said in a statement. “The Hefty EnergyBag program provides a convenient way to collect plastic materials that would otherwise end up in the landfill and offers a platform to promote positive behaviors to prevent this material from being wasted.”

The grant program builds on Dow’s longstanding relationship with Keep America Beautiful and will be funded through the Company’s Global Citizenship Impact Fund, a unique way to unlock business value while driving social impact. The fund provides financial resources for business-aligned global citizenship initiatives focused on three key impact areas: access to clean drinking water, packaging to prevent food waste, and post-consumer waste management.