The Hefty EnergyBag Program
The Hefty® EnergyBag® program is a groundbreaking initiative, led by Dow and Reynolds Consumer Products, that collects previously hard-to-recycle plastics at curbside and converts them into valuable energy resources. The program is a significant step towards achieving positive long-term environmental and economic advantages, including fewer plastics ending up in landfills.
Dow and Keep America Beautiful established the Hefty® EnergyBag® Grant to offer communities nationwide the opportunity to implement the Hefty® EnergyBag® program as part of their existing waste management infrastructure.
Cobb County received a $50,000 grant to implement the program in our community which launched in late fall 2018. Currently, customers of American Disposal, B-Green Services, City of Smyrna, Custom Disposal Service and Pickers Waste Service can enroll. Please contact your enrolled hauler customer service department to join:
- American Disposal (678) 720-0500
- B Green Services (404) 660-1392
- City of Smyrna (770) 431-2863
- Custom Disposal Service (770) 977-2788
- Pickers Waste Service (678) 324-8675
- Trash Taxi of Georgia (770) 975-0926
Find out more about the program
Participating households place their hard-to-recycle plastics in Hefty® EnergyBag® orange bags. Once full, residents tie the bags and place them in their curbside recycling carts or bins during their regularly-scheduled recycling pick-up.
Participants' current haulers pick up the tied orange bags along with their regular recycling materials and send them to a local materials recovery facility (MRF) for sorting. The MRF then bales the bags and sends them to a local energy recovery facility, which converts plastics into valuable energy resources.
The Environmental Benefits
The Hefty® EnergyBag® program provides many environmental and economic benefits, including:
- The diversion of valuable resources from landfills
- The conversion of waste into alternative energy, which can be used to power businesses, cars and homes
- Improved efficiency of existing mechanical recycling programs by reducing the amount of hard-to-recycle materials going to materials recovery facilities, ultimately improving the quality of recycled materials such as paper and cardboard
- Potential cost savings that aid in the decrease of waste management costs
- The reduction of fossil fuels extracted from the ground
- Increased consumer engagement and education of resource recovery