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.

PepsiCo’s Dream Machine recycling initiative, which aims to place both interactive kiosks and bins, was created in partnership with Waste Management and Keep America Beautiful. With approximately 1,500 Dream Machines located in more than 20 states to date, the program aims to increase the U.S. beverage container recycling rate from 34 to 50 percent by 2018.

The DowntownDC BID’s Safety/Hospitality and Maintenance workers, known as SAMs, will be responsible for maintaining the bins and serving as on-the-street liaisons who educate people about public recycling and the Dream Machine program.

Jeremy Cage, senior vice president of Innovation and Insights at PepsiCo and head of the Dream Machine recycling initiative, commented, «We are thrilled that our nation’s capital is the first city to offer the Dream Machine program to its community. With collaborative partnerships like this one, we are confident that we can help provoke behavioral change by making recycling more convenient, and we encourage others to join us as we strive to make positive change for our planet.»

For all the bottles and cans recycled in a Dream Machine bin or kiosk in Washington, D.C., and across the nation, PepsiCo will make a contribution to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), a national program offering free, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management to post-9/11 U.S. veterans with disabilities.