Nestle Waters North America and Keep America Beautiful have partnered to provide grants of $10,000 to 12 communities to spur recycling in public areas including sports venues and parks.

The "Recycle on the Go" grants, announced yesterday, will be used for the most part to buy recycling bins, related equipment and education materials to set up community programs.

The dozen winning communities were culled from a pool of 55 that applied for the grants. Each was required to propose programs for recycling plastic beverage bottles.

The 12 recipients are:

Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, NM
Keep Allen Beautiful, TX
Keep Akron Beautiful. OH
Keep Stockwell Beautiful, IN
Keep Blackstone Valley Beautiful, RI
Keep Charleston Beautiful, SC
Asheville Greenworks, NC
Keep Greenville County Beautiful, SC
Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful, WI
Keep Mandeville Beautiful, LA
Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful, FL
Keep Council Bluffs Beautiful, IA

Details of about each community program can be found here.

In the U.S., 82 million tons of municipal solid waste were recycled in 2006, reducing carbon emissions by the equivalent of removing more than 39 million cars from the road, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Nestle Waters, the largest bottled waters company in North America, issued its first Corporate Citizenship Report in October. In the report, the firm set goals to double recycling of PET bottles by bringing the recycling rate to 60 percent by 2018, to make its bottles with as much as 25 percent recycled PET by 2013, and to develop a bottle made from 100 percent recycled material by 2020.

Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful is the largest volunteer-based community action and education organization in the U.S.

_{Image CC licensed by Flickr user shrff14.}