The Halifax Wire      21 Jul 2021        CONTRIBUTED Halifax’s Anchor Dental is committing to helping the environment with the installation of Safety Equipment and Protective Gear Zero Waste Boxes. They are in partnership with TerraCycle®. When the staff at Anchor Dental noticed the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, gloves and disinfectant wipes that were entering landfills, they decided to help. After partnering with TerraCycle® to employ a Safety Equipment and Protective Gear Zero Waste Box in their office, Anchor Dental is now providing an easy way for staff to recycle used masks, gloves and disinfectant wipes. With TerraCycle’s special waste box placed conveniently inside the office, staff can divert this waste from landfills.

Especially in the wake of COVID-19, the planet needs protection from the surge of improperly discarded PPE that is leaking into marine environments and posing serious hazards to ocean wildlife. TerraCycle, focusing in the collection and repurposing of complex waste streams, created the Zero Waste Box program to provide solutions for difficult-to-recycle waste that cannot be recycled through the company’s brandsponsored,

national recycling programs or standard municipal recycling. When customers return a Safety Equipment and Protective Gear Zero Waste Box for recycling, it’s received at a regional TerraCycle warehouse where the waste is manually sorted by material type. The individual waste streams are sent to third party specialty subcontracting facilities for mechanical processing. After undergoing mechanical processing, the resulting material can be remolded into a variety of new products such as plastic shipping pallets, railroad ties or outdoor furniture. Before its partnership with TerraCycle, Anchor Dental was - and continues to be recycling all used plastic air/ water syringe tips and suction tips through local municipalities. "If we are not going to recycle these items, we are not setting the correct example. If we can reduce these items in the waste stream, then we are better corporate citizens. It’s that simple. You need to do what you can,” Dr. Ken Rhodenizer, DDS at Anchor Dental, said in a press release. More information about Anchor Dental can be found at www.anchordental.ca/. More details on TerraCycle is at www.TerraCycle.ca.