PURCHASE, N.Y., June 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Three schools have been named official Grand Prize winners of the 2012-13 PepsiCo Dream Machine Recycle Rally, a national recycling program and contest designed to provide incentives to help students make recycling a part of their daily lives. H&M Potter Elementary School in Bayville, NJ (K-5th grade), St. Bede Catholic School in Ingleside, IL (K-8th grade), and Westfield High School in Houston, TX (9th-12th grade) will each receive $25,000 to be used toward "Dream Green School Makeovers." Previous winners have used grand prize funds to purchase energy efficient appliances or construct outdoor learning spaces.
During this year's Recycle Rally contest, each of the winning schools recycled the most PET plastic bottles and aluminum cans in their respective contest brackets, which are determined by school size. These three winners collectively recycled 2.85 million beverage containers – enough to stretch from PepsiCo's corporate headquarters in Westchester County, NY all the way to Washington, D.C. if lined up end to end.
To celebrate these exciting wins, each grand prize winning school joined Dream Machine Recycle Rally representatives and notable members of their communities for awards ceremonies this spring, including today's check presentation, which will be hosted at H&M Potter Elementary School in Bayville, N.J. Special guests at today's celebration include Ocean County Freeholder Joseph Vicari, who will share a proclamation from U.S. Congressman Jon Runyan to congratulate the school for collecting more containers than any other school in the contest despite its modest enrollment of less than 600 students. At the Grand Prize celebrations, each school was treated to hear the personal story from one of the 600 graduates from the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with disabilities (EBV), which is a beneficiary of this program's charitable donations.
In total, PepsiCo has awarded nearly $200,000 in prizes to dozens of Recycle Rally schools across the country throughout the 2012-2013 school year contest. As a result, PepsiCo has been able to help divert almost 700,000 pounds of aluminum and plastic beverage containers from landfills and turn them back into millions of new beverage containers.
Each winning school rallied not only its students, faculty, and administration, but also their surrounding communities to support this positive program and bring forth inspiring efforts to protect the environment this year. Their methods included recycling drives, community drop-offs, competitions, and other creative techniques to educate and engage individuals and breathe vitality into Recycle Rally communities.
"PepsiCo promotes environmental sustainability throughout all aspects of our business, and we're committed to finding innovative ways to cut costs and minimize our impact on the environment through energy and water conservation and reduction of packaging volume. Recycling is an important part of PepsiCo's overall environmental sustainability efforts, and we continue to be impressed by the passion and commitment of everyone who participates in the Dream Machine Recycle Rally. This year's winners not only worked tirelessly to help keep our earth clean, but also to raise awareness amongst students about the importance of recycling and hopefully creating lifelong recyclers in the process," said Tom Mooradian, Recycle Rally Program Manager.
About Dream Machine Recycle Rally
Dream Machine Recycle Rally is a nationwide school recycling program designed to raise awareness among students, grades K-12, about the importance of recycling and encourage them to make recycling part of their everyday lives. The Dream Machine Recycle Rally is part of the broader Dream Machine Recycling Initiative.
The Recycle Rally encourages recycling through the following means:
Since its launch in 2010, the Dream Machine Recycle Rally has galvanized K-12 schools across the country to help make the planet cleaner and greener through recycling. Nearly 1,000 schools in 34 states nationwide have participated and an estimated 40 million containers – almost two million pounds – have been captured and kept out of landfills since the program's launch.
About the Dream Machine Recycling Initiative
The Dream Machine Recycling Initiative, introduced on Earth Day 2010, has made thousands of new recycling kiosks and bins available in popular public venues such as gas stations, stadiums, and parks with the aim to increase the U.S. beverage container recycling rate. 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 recycled. To learn more, please visit www.PepsiCoRecycling.com or our Facebook page www.facebook.com/DreamMachine.
About PepsiCo
PepsiCo is a global food and beverage leader with net revenues of more than $65 billion and a product portfolio that includes 22 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in annual retail sales. Our main businesses – Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade, Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola – make hundreds of enjoyable foods and beverages that are loved throughout the world. PepsiCo's people are united by our unique commitment to sustainable growth by investing in a healthier future for people and our planet, which we believe also means a more successful future for PepsiCo. We call this commitment Performance with Purpose: PepsiCo's promise to provide a wide range of foods and beverages from treats to healthy eats; to find innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment by conserving energy and water and reducing packaging volume; to provide a great workplace for our associates; and to respect, support and invest in the local communities where we operate. For more information, please visit www.pepsico.com.
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Ruder Finn, Inc.
P: (212) 593-6306 E: posnerb@ruderfinn.com
SOURCE PepsiCo