Jan 17 2010
Alcoa (NYSE:AA) will donate 150,000 aluminum cans – or 4,500 pounds - to help a Spokane, WA, couple achieve their dream of paying for their upcoming wedding through recycling.
When Peter Geyer and Andrea Parrish 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 aluminum cans to pay for the ceremony. And when Alcoa – the world’s largest aluminum recycler – heard their story, it wanted to help.
“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.”
In addition to donating 150,000 cans toward the couple’s 400,000 can goal, Alcoa is 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.
“The support that Alcoa has offered is incredibly motivating,” said Andrea. “While our goal has been to collect 400,000 cans for our wedding, we are even more excited about getting the message of recycling and helping the environment out to even more people.”
The couple chose recycling cans as their fundraiser to align their beliefs of helping the environment with their need to raise funds. 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. In fact, 73 percent of all of the aluminum ever produced since 1888 is still in use today because of the material’s infinite recyclability.
Anyone interested in recycling cans for the couple’s wedding can go to www.weddingcans.com for more information.