‘Download to Donate’ Initiative Has $50,000 Potential

To celebrate America Recycles Day, Alcoa Foundation is launching a “Download to Donate” initiative, giving $1 to Keep America Beautiful for every free Alcoa Aluminate recycling app download between Nov. 15  (America Recycles Day) and Jan. 23, up to $50,000.

Alcoa's Can Reclamation facility in Tennessee recycles enough used beverage cans and other recyclables to produce 14 billion new cans a year. Photo: Courtesy of Alcoa

Like other green apps, Alcoa is looking to make recycling aluminum cans easier for consumers.

“It’s totally free and it’s focused on helping consumers find recycling centers, track how many aluminum cans they recycle, and calculate the cash they can earn as they help protect the environment through recycling aluminum cans,” says Libby Archell, director of communications for Alcoa Foundation.

The app is now available and also features social media sharing, facts and videos about aluminum can recycling.

Alcoa will also be launching its Make an Impact program to support its employees and neighbors at its Tennessee Can Reclamation facility. Developed in partnership with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Make an Impact helps families live more sustainably and save money on energy bills.

“It’s a program that’s focused on helping Alcoa families and our neighbors  be more aware of their environmental footprint and take steps to reduce it,” says Archell.

According to Archell, the program was developed in Australia in 2006 and introduced to the U.S. in 2008, and the company is on track to engage 40 percent of its workforce by mid-year of 2011. Other organizations, such as Bank of America and Entergy Corporation, a large energy corporation in the south of the U.S., are also now adopting the program and rolling it out to their workforces.

“It’s a program that is very practically based and is something that’s part of Alcoa’s commitment to being a leader on climate change and its a program that we wanted to share more broadly with both the NGO and business communities to help them also engage their workforce and really bring about a greater mindfulness on being environmentally responsible,” says Archell.

Since 2008, the program has found families ways to save more than 3 million pounds of CO2 and $1 million on home energy bills. Alcoa is one of the largest aluminum can recyclers. Alcoa and the Aluminum Association have a goal of increasing the recycling rate of aluminum cans in the U.S. to 75 percent by the year 2015.

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