Hey America, What Are You Recycling Today?

In case you didn't know, today is the 13th annual America Recycles Day, part of the Keep America Beautiful program and the only nationally recognized day dedicated to educating and encouraging Americans to recycle. It fits that this "holiday" would stand out to me for two reasons: I'm an avid recycler at home (despite my fiancé's eye rolls as I pull apart packaging to separate plastic from recyclable material), and at Frito-Lay, we've prioritized "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" as a key strategy to support our commitment to environmental sustainability -- and we've been doing so for more than a decade!

You may have read here on Snack Chat about our accomplishments to reduce, reuse and recycle at Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, our parent company. We've blogged about how our frontline teams reuse the shipping cartons used to transport our snacks to retail outlets at least five times before the cardboard is recycled -- saving 120,000 tons of paperboard a year. At our more than 30 U.S. manufacturing plants, we've created "GreenTeams," groups of employees responsible for resource conservation and recycling programs at their site -- and boy are they passionate about the environment and making big strides to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Our biggest milestone to-date occurred just last month, when we unveiled our first "Near Net Zero" facility at our Casa Grande, Ariz., plant, where we set out on a mission to transform one of our existing manufacturing facilities into one that could run primarily on renewable energy sources and recycled water, while producing nearly zero waste (hence the term, “Near Net Zero”). Check out a quick video highlighting the achievements at our Casa Grande site.

As Americans celebrate America Recycles Day this year by attending one of the many events hosted around the country -- or just by walking a few extra feet to the recycling bin at lunch -- I'm sitting here at Frito-Lay headquarters, proud to work for a company that celebrates recycling year-round.

What are you doing to reduce, reuse and recycle?

- Kristin