The pro-recycling group Closed Loop Partners has offered to provide no-interest and below-market loans totaling $5 million to Connecticut municipalities and businesses in order to create new recycling technologies or improve existing systems.

To find and evaluate applicants for the loans, Closed Loop Partners will receive assistance from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Closed Loop Partners also commissioned a recent study that uncovered that less than 30 percent of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is being recovered in the U.S.

Hartford Courant has more information:

Closed Loop Partners began its first Connecticut partnership project last year in Waterbury with a program to help increase that city’s recycling rates from 6 percent to 25 percent over three years. As part of the program, the Closed Loop Fund paid for 95-gallon recycling containers for every Waterbury residence, and funded the purchase of recycling trucks.

According to the nonprofit group, early indications from the Waterbury partnership appear to show that the city’s recycling rate was doubled in the first month of the program.

Closed Loop Partners officials have a goal of investing $100 million in recycling efforts across the U.S. by 2020. Some of the corporations that are supporting the effort include 3M, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Walmart.

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