We are surprised that GallonDaily is reporting on this event but industry promotion of recycling is something of which we see far too little and would like to see so much more.

A Maryland based company called Honest Tea, which markets bottled tea and other beverages, is promoting recycling through placement of a 30 foot recycling container in Times Square, New York, on 30th April.  The idea is that the denizens of New York City will toss more than 45,000 plastic, glass and aluminum beverage containers into the recycling container in ten hours. Points will be awarded for each bottle recycled that can be redeemed at the onsite TRASHed Recycling Store for cold bottles of Honest Tea, t-shirts and reusable bags, jeans, video games, and tickets to sporting events, concerts and Broadway shows. The plastic bottles collected will be recycled into essential gardening supplies including shovels, watering cans and plastic lumber, which will be used to build and cultivate an urban garden for PS 102, an elementary school in Harlem.

Honest Tea co-founder and TeaEO Seth Goldman is quoted in the press release as saying that “National recycling rates are nowhere near where they need to be.” “Honest Tea is committed to finding ways to help Americans recycle more. We’ve helped install recycling bins in our hometown of Bethesda, MD and now it’s time to expand our efforts.”

GallonDaily commends the effort. This is what we need to see: companies getting behind recycling and making it easy and fun for consumers to recycle end-of-life packaging.

The interesting part of this story is that Honest Tea is an independent business unit of The Coca-Cola Company. Imagine what we could do if Coca-Cola extended similar recycling efforts across all its brands.

You can read more about Honest Tea’s The Great Recycle at http://www.thegreatrecycle.com/ after April 16th or at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/4/prweb9385817.htm today.