(Credit: Poland Spring)With today’s shoppers increasingly concerned about - but still confused by - the issue of plastic bottles and recycling, Nestle Waters North America brand Poland Spring is hoping to court consumers by launching an Instagram recycling “hotline” to answer questions.
Poland Spring is teaming up with The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving recycling in communities across the country on the hotline. Instagram users can post a photo of the item in question on their feed or in their stories, tagging #NotTrash and @PolandSpringWtr to ask for help. Poland Spring and The Recycling Partnership say they will let users know whether something is recyclable.
Poland Spring is also donating $150,000 to The Recycling Partnership to help improve curbside access to recycling and “inspire more Americans to recycle more, better.”
Poland Spring’s current packaging, which is made from PET plastic, is 100% recyclable, the company says. In June, the brand also made the commitment to convert all its individual-sized still water bottles to 100% recycled plastic by 2022.
Plastic pollution is a growing concern for companies as consumers demand more accountability and as the breadth of the problem increases. Today, Reuters reported that tiny pieces of plastic have been found in ice cores drilled in the arctic - discoveries like this underscore the threat that plastic pollution “poses to marine life in even the remotest waters on the planet.”
The micro plastic found in the Canadian Arctic - an area scientists had expected would be “relatively sheltered from plastic pollution” - was an unwelcome surprise to the explores and services to “highlight how the waste problem has reached epidemic proportions,” Reuters wrote.
