Designed to complement current recycling efforts, the Hefty ReNew™ program, formerly the Hefty® EnergyBag® program establishes a way to collect otherwise hard-to-recycle plastics at curbside and uses them as valued resources. These hard-to-recycle plastics include common items like candy wrappers and foam takeout containers. 

The program clearly demonstrates its ability to help divert these resources away from landfills, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, increase efficiency at recycling facilities, and improve the quality of other recycled materials.  In doing so, the Hefty ReNew™ program takes an important step toward a more circular plastics economy and a more sustainable future.

This program is a groundbreaking initiative, led by Dow and Reynolds Consumer Products, that collects previously hard-to-recycle plastics at curbside and converts them into valuable resources.

Dow and Keep America Beautiful established the Hefty® EnergyBag® Grant to offer communities nationwide the opportunity to implement the Hefty® EnergyBag® program as part of their existing waste management infrastructure.

In 2017, Cobb County received a $50,000 grant from Dow and administered through Keep America Beautiful to implement the program in our community. The program launched in November 2018, making the program available to customers of American Disposal.  By mid-2019, more than 20,000 residents expressed interest in participating, involving additional recycling haulers.  Cobb County was awarded a second Hefty® EnergyBag® program grant from Dow to expand the program beginning in 2020.

Currently, Cobb County haulers that participates in the Hefty ReNew™ program:

• American Disposal
• B Green Services
• Custom Disposal Service
• Trash Taxi

To find out if your hauler is participating, please contact your hauler today!

Participating households place their hard-to-recycle plastics in Hefty ReNew™ program orange bags.  Once full, residents tie the bags and place them in their curbside recycling carts or bins during their regularly scheduled recycling pick-up.

Participants' current haulers pick up the tied orange Hefty ReNew™ bags along with their regular recycling material and send them to a local material recovery facility (MRF) for sorting.  The MRF then bales the bags and sends them to a local advanced recycling facility, which converts plastics into valuable resources.

Additional bags can be purchased at your local Target, Walmart, Kroger stores or directly from Hefty.

The Hefty ReNew™ program provides many environmental and economic benefits, including:

• The diversion of valuable resources from landfills.
• The conversion of waste into alternative energy, which can be used to power businesses, cars, and homes.
• Processes Hefty ReNew™  contents into materials used to make concrete blocks, plastic lumber, and other building products.
• Processes Hefty ReNew™  contents to create drainage material similar to a French drain, which drains water for agriculture and stormwater infrastructure needs.
• Processes Hefty ReNew™  contents to make roofing material, which could replace gypsum board, one of the most prevalent building materials in residential and commercial buildings.
• The implementation of a circular economy by using waste plastics to make new plastics and the reduction of fossil fuels extracted from the ground.
• Improved efficiency of existing mechanical recycling programs by reducing the number of hard-to-recycle materials going to materials recovery facilities, ultimately improving the quality of recycled materials such as paper and cardboard.
• Potential cost savings that aid in the decrease of waste management costs.
• Increased consumer engagement and education of resource recovery.

• DOW
• City of Smyrna
• Cobb County Government
• Keep Cobb Beautiful Inc.
• Keep Smyrna Beautiful
• Kroger
• Reynolds Consumer Products
• Target
• Walmart
• WestRock Recycling