That lesson was driven home to me at an inspiring seminar I attended recently in Boston. The event was put on by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, founded by a Harvard business professor, to celebrate 100 of the fastest-growing, urban small businesses across America. These companies had averaged fourfold growth over five years--during a punishing recession no less--by identifying and addressing unsatisfied niches in the marketplace. Their stories were breathtaking: A college student who created a global business to develop reuses of everything from chip bags to cigarette butts to diapers because he thought a better alterative must exist to all the waste being buried in landfills. Propelled by social media, reality TV, and a greater desire by people and businesses to act green, TerraCycle now has millions of people in 20 countries sending it trash. That waste gets recycled into hundreds of products that are then sold at major retailers.

As America's culture of convenience continues to flourish, single-cup coffee makers have become increasingly popular among coffee drinkers. But beneath those expedient one-cup coffee pods lies a growing environmental problem. Like most single-cup coffee pods, K-Cups consist of a combination of plastic, aluminum, organic material (coffee grounds) and a paper filter. While all said items can be easily recycled separately, the K-Cup as a whole cannot be recycled on a municipal level. "It's that hybrid packaging that makes it very hard for traditional recycling companies," said Albe Zakes, global vice president of public relations at the recycling company TerraCycle. "If you think of something as simple as a chip bag for example, a chip bag is fully recyclable. The challenge is that it's both plastic and aluminum, a hybrid packaging, which is very common, especially in food and beverage." Since 2009, TerraCycle has partnered with various single-serve coffee manufacturers to provide recycling solutions for spent coffee pods. By teaming up with Tassimo, Mars Drinks, Nespresso and more recently Illy, TerraCycle has developed a customized take back program for each company that has helped divert millions of coffee pods from landfills across the country. "Over the last couple years, TerraCycle has already collected I believe 25 million coffee capsules of the various applications through all these programs," said Zakes. "As we expand with more companies, bringing Illy into the fold, we've really ended up in a place where we work with basically everyone except for the K-Cup." Despite reaching out to the company multiple times, TerraCycle has not been able to develop a relationship with Green Mountain, Zakes said.    

More than a tenth of US households — 12 percent — own single-cup coffee brewers, says the National Coffee Association, and that number is on the rise. But one-cup coffee pods are not easily recyclable, and the coffee industry is looking for more sustainable options, writes Waste & Recycling News. Cafection, a manufacturer of ground and whole bean single cup coffee brewer equipment, says it offers a more environmentally friendly single-serve coffee pod. Products use paper fil­ters, which are biodegrad­able, and they do not use plastic discs. The hybrid packaging of coffee pods — which usually include both plastic and aluminum — makes it difficult for traditional recycling companies to handle, says Albe Zakes, global vice president of public relations at the recycling company TerraCycle. TerraCycle has worked with a variety of coffee manufacturers to create take-back programs and handle the recycling of used pods, diverting millions of them from landfills. Nespresso, for example, worked with TerraCycle to provide a second life for used coffee capsules through the Nespresso Capsule Brigade. Consumers must create a TerraCycle account, ask for supplies online, collect and package their Nespresso capsules, download a free shipping label from TerraCycle, and drop the box off at a UPS location. TerraCycle says the metal capsules are melted down and turned into new aluminum products. Residual coffee is separated and sent to an industrial composting facility.

The Social Innovation Summit Landmark Ventures launched the Social Innovation Summit 3 years ago to convene socially conscious businesses, non-profits, corporations and investors to explore technology innovations and partnerships that solve problems around clean air and water, poverty and more. Recycling Everything We Touch Dynamic 31-year old CEO Tom Szaky founded TerraCycle in 2001 to attack recycling with a vengeance! TerraCycle works with more than 100 major U.S. brands and in 22 other countries to collect used packaging and products otherwise headed to landfills. It repurposes the waste into creative materials and products to be sold online and through retailers. Waste ranges from food wrappers to dirty diapers to cigarette butts. TerraCycle’s mission is to recycle everything we touch and eliminate the idea of waste all together! What Tom Szaky discovered is that recycling is all about economics. He developed a Corporate-sponsored Waste Program with Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturers like Kraft to pay consumers to help collect non-recyclable packaging. The waste is then converted into eco-friendly products. TerraCycle has won repeated awards for social change, recycling and sustainability.

Miljøvirksomheden TerraCycle lancerer i samarbejde med Arla et indsamlingsprogram, der sikrer at låg fra mælke- og yoghurtprodukter bliver genbrugt.

 

Pinecrest