PepsiCo announced a partnership with the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID) and the District Department of Public Works (DPW) that will make Washington, D.C. the U.S. first city to partner with the Dream Machine recycling initiative. A total of 363 recycling bins will be placed throughout the Downtown DC BID area, offering a convenient and rewarding recycling option for people while they are on-the-go and advancing the BID’s Greening Downtown DC initiative.

Rankings revolving around the health, environmental and social impact of products and companies are gaining their popularity among consumers who want to know if the goods they purchase are really healthy from different points of view. Recently, Popsop wrote about Nike’s ‘Environmental Apparel Design Tool,’ based on Nike’s Considered Design Index, as well as the Eco Index, and now the GoodGuide system, created back in 2007, gets into the spotlight. So far, over 95,000 food, toys, apparel, personal care & household products, babies & kids, electronics and appliances produced by both local and global companies (the list of those includes Starbucks, Levi’s, H&M, Nescafe, Nike, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Diesel to name a few) are thoroughly studied and ranked by experts of GoodGuide, with the results being available at the website and on the iPhone app.

Six hundred fewer tons of plastic in the environment in 2011: this is the green result that Benetton Group will achieve by introducing innovative, lightweight liquid wood clothes hangers—100% biodegradable and recyclable—in place of the plastic hangers usually used to display garments. The eco-hangers, developed in partnership with the Fraunhofer-Institut für Chemische Technologie in Pfinztal-Berghausen (Germany), will gradually replace their plastic predecessors throughout the worldwide network of Benetton stores.

The Coca-Cola Company and H.J. Heinz Company yesterday, February 23, announced a strategic partnership that enables Heinz to produce its ketchup bottles using Coca-Cola’s breakthrough PlantBottle™ packaging. The PET plastic bottles are made partially from plants and have a lower reliance on non-renewable resources compared with traditional PET plastic bottles.