Alcoa helps couple's wedding plans through aluminum can recycling
12 Jan 2010
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – When Peter Geyer and Andrea Parrish of Spokane, Wichita agreed to marry, they knew they needed to raise the money to make their July wedding plans a reality. So they tapped into their desire to protect the environment, and started a campaign to recycle 400,000 aluminum cans to pay for the ceremony.
When aluminium major Alcoa heard their story, it decided to donate 150,000 aluminum cans, equivalent to around 2000kgs, - to help the US couple achieve their goal. The company is also helping to spread the word about the couple’s initiative by posting information on its own blog and website. The couple has already collected or had donations of more than 100,000 cans.
“We were getting emails through www.alcoarecycling.com and hearing about the couple on the news. Alcoa has a goal to raise recycling rates to 75% by the year 2015, and what Peter and Andrea have done to raise the awareness of this issue goes a long way to help educate people on the benefits of recycling,” said Greg Wittbecker, director of corporate recycling at Alcoa. “We just wanted to encourage them to keep up the great effort, and to make sure they have the wedding they’ve dreamed of.”
According to Alcoa, aluminum cans are infinitely recyclable and it takes 95% less energy to recycle cans than to make them from new aluminum. The beverage containers can be used, recycled, and back on store shelves in as little as 60 days. It added that 73% of all of the aluminum ever produced since 1888 is still in use today because of the material’s infinite recyclability.
People interested in recycling cans for the couple’s wedding can go to www.weddingcans.com for more information.
