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As Earth Month Winds Down, Honest Tea Recycles Old Facebook Posts
Last week Honest Tea launched a Facebook app that may just encourage you and your peers to recycle. The company is working with an ad agency to embed more sustainability thinking by bringing up your old Facebook postings.
The Great Recycle is part of Honest Tea’s campaign to recycle every bottle the company produces by 2020. This new campaign will kick off publicly tomorrow, when a 30-foot-tall bin in New York’s Time Square will arise in an attempt to collect over 45,000 beverage containers in one day--which is the company’s average daily sales in New York City.
Here is how the social media campaign works. First users have to join the Great Recycle app on Facebook. Users, of course, have to allow Honest Tea and its partners to access your information. Assuming you are comfortable with that, the app will then file through your old posts and suggest past postings that received a bevy of “likes” and comments. To avoid the embarrassment of the dredging up of posts complaining of hangovers or expletive filled tirades while you were placed on hold by a customer service representative, the user has the option to select which post he or she wants “recycled.” That app is then reposted to your timeline, and, viola! Your post from the past is re-posted with a message that promotes recycling.
But wait, there’s more! Recyclebank fiends will score points that they can redeem towards their favorite products.
Cutting edge or creepy? Innovative or invasive? Watch the video for yourself and decide if this is a worthy effort. Honest Tea has a history of tacking sustainability issues--even with Coca-Cola as a part-owner, a transaction that at first worried some of its fans. From fair trade commitment to the planting of trees in regions affected by wildfires and programs that fund state parks during an era of budget cuts, the company has plenty of fans who admire the company for its activism.
My guess is that this sustainability campaign will succeed and score some recycling converts.
Leon Kaye, based in California, is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business and Inhabitat. You can follow him on Twitter.
Photo courtesy Honest Tea.
Leon Kaye has written for 3p since 2010 and become executive editor in 2018. His previous work includes writing for the Guardian as well as other online and print publications. In addition, he's worked in sales executive roles within technology and financial research companies, as well as for a public relations firm, for which he consulted with one of the globe’s leading sustainability initiatives. Currently living in Central California, he’s traveled to 70-plus countries and has lived and worked in South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay.
Leon’s an alum of Fresno State, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the University of Southern California's Marshall Business School. He enjoys traveling abroad as well as exploring California’s Central Coast and the Sierra Nevadas.
