Sam’s Club and Aquafina have teamed up once again in support of Keep America Beautiful’s ‘Great American Cleanup,’ the nation’s largest annual community improvement program. The partnership has produced the ‘Return The Warmth‘ program, aimed at challenging local communities and schools to contribute to the ‘Cleanup’ project. Through this year’s program, an estimated 189 million plastic bottles were recycled, exceeding the stated goal of 80 million and more than doubling the results from last year’s campaign, where 70.6 million bottles were recycled.
A total of 25,000 fleece jackets made from recycled plastic bottle material have been distributed to the 100 schools that collected the most bottles. In addition, the top 50 schools received a $1,000 Sam’s Club Gift Card. “Return the Warmth has been a testament to Sam’s Club and Aquafina’s creativity in putting Keep America Beautiful’s message of ‘closing the loop’ to work, and teaching it to school children across the country,” said Keep America Beautiful President & CEO Matthew McKenna. “Nearly doubling our goal in collecting 189 million PET bottles through our Great American Cleanup participating organizations has been simply astounding.”
