SAN DIEGO – A San Diego based organization that started a cigarette butt redemption program last year is about to embark on another innovative idea. Ripple Life will be the first group to send in cigarette butts to be recycled on a commercial level. In January 2011, avid surfer and beach lover, Curtis Baffico decided to start a program that paid people based on the amount of butts they collected. The redemption program was the first of its kind in the country and generated huge support in the social media world. Gregg Sullivan owns a surf shop in Ocean Beach. He heard about the program on Facebook and decided to get involved. “I was always picking up cigarette butts anyway, so I thought I might as well give it a try,” Sullivan said. “I started during my run, but then was bending down every five feet to pick them up.” Sullivan ended up taking about 20 minutes, twice a day to pick up butts. He kept a log and collected 28,000 butts. “Some days I could collect more than a 1,000 cigarettes, other days, I picked up 2,000,” he said. Baffico spent the last 18 months collecting and storing the public’s cigarettes. He now has more than 100,000. The butts are stored in eco-friendly, specialty containers at his home in Clairemont. “We’ve realized that the problem is much, much bigger than we ever imagined and it’s really sad because as quick as we’re picking up littered cigarette butts, they’re being replaced almost instantaneously,” said Baffico. Now, he has a plan for the old butts. Ripple Life has partnered with a large recycling manufacture, Terracycle, to recycle the filters. Cigarette filters are made out of plastic, so the process is similar to recycling a plastic soda bottle, according to Baffico. “We had three goals when we started the program. We wanted a cleaner and safer outdoors, a reduction of landfill waste and to recycle the cigarette filters,” he explained. “The third part has been the most challenging part of the project. We’ve had extreme difficulty finding anyone who wanted to anything with them.” Terracycle is based in New Jersey and already collects other reusable products and recycles them into consumer products. The company tells FOX 5, the cigarette butts will be converted into industrial pallets. Terracycle estimates it will take about 5,000 butts per pallet, but in reality, it won’t start the recycling process until the company collects hundreds of thousands of cigarettes to make the conversion process cost effective and environmentally friendly. Terracycle will also pay Ripple Life. $1 for every pound of butts donated. Ripple Life is the first group in the country to send in cigarettes to be recycled on a commercial level. “I think it shows other people in the nation who have a concern for this that it can be done,” Baffico said. Ripple Life had about 100 volunteers from around San Diego collect butts for the project. At times, the non-profit ran contests for collection. The redemption program will give collectors $3 per pound collected, but Baffico said most people don’t take the money. Instead they donate it to one of Ripple Life’s 10 supported charities. “What we’ve discovered is that a lot of people have are disgusted with the problem, but have less passion for getting out there and bending down and picking up butts,” Baffico admitted. Volunteers are always welcome to help Ripple Life.

LiveWell Colorado suggests you not eat every single Snickers bar your kids brought home Wednesday night. Instead, they suggest you drop off leftovers at Bellco Credit Union, and in exchange you’ll get some healthier snack options and a chance at prizes. Prizes include Justin Beiber tickets — kid probably has his own chef and trainer. (You could drop it off at The Denver Post, if you give me a call and let me know what time you’ll be driving by, but we’ll just eat it. I doubt if a bunch of fat journalists is what LiveWell has in mind.) [media-credit id=309 align="alignleft" width="270"] Time to give back the extra candy? (AP) Exactly what LiveWell will do with the Halloween leftovers took a couple of extra questions. They won’t donate them tho homeless shelters or the military, because shelters already tend to get offers of a lot of unhealthy food. And the military has its own problems with obesity and bad nutrition, according to recent reports. So LiveWell will dispose of the candy; the wrappers will be used for projects at Terracycle. Here’s the schedule, one dropoff and fitness party Friday, another on Saturday: Friday, Nov. 2, from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., Downtown Denver Bellco Credit Union Branch, 951 16th Street Suite 101, Denver. and, Saturday, Nov. 3, from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., Lone Tree Bellco Credit Union Branch, 9220 Park Meadows Drive, Lone Tree.

BREVARD - What is green, lots of fun and benefits needy children in Brevard? Recycle Brevard's second annual "Recycling Fun: Toy Swap/Drop Off," which will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10 at Viera Regional Park. Organized in honor of America Recycles Day, an event to spread awareness about environmentally friendly practices nationwide, the "Recycling Fun: Toy Swap/Drop Off" aims to get residents of Brevard excited about the "three R's": reduce, reuse and recycle, said Marcia Booth, creator of Recycle Brevard. "Our America Recycles Day event focuses on the reuse concept through a toy swap," Ms. Booth said. Participants will be able to exchange new or gently used toys with one another, as well as donate toys to Nana's House, a nonprofit, private Christian home for neglected, abused, needy and abandoned children in Brevard County. Additionally, Friends of Children of Brevard County, another nonprofit dedicated to helping disadvantaged youth, will be there to collect gently used clothes, shoes and duffle bags to give to children. The event will also feature lessons about recycling from Keep Brevard Beautiful and Brevard County Solid Waste Management Department. Ms. Booth said various collection stations will be set up so attendees can bring an array of items that would be normally be discarded, such as candy wrappers, cheese wrappers and lotion bottles. For a full list of specific items, visit www.recyclebrevard.org and click "Terracycle." Ms. Booth started Recycle Brevard last year, after touring a local landfill with her daughter and learning that 30 percent of Brevard County residents recycle. "My goal is to make more information available on reducing, reusing and recycling to try to motivate more residents to embrace the three R's," she said. For more information about the event, visit www.recyclebrevard.org or go to Recycle Brevard's Facebook page.

By Starla Pointer Of the News-Register

Instead of tossing empty juice pouches and granola bar wrappers into the trash, Columbus Elementary School students are recycling them by sending them to a company that uses them to make new products. The project is good for the environment, good for the instructional program and good for the school, said CB Mason of the Columbus PTA. She collects the recycled packages and prepares them for shipping to Terracycle, the remanufacturing company. In return, Terracycle offers cash the school can use for educational activities or equipment, or points the school can exchange for the company’s products. This year, she said, Columbus is using points to “buy” pencil bags that will serve as prizes for winners of the jog-a-thon. Grandhaven Elementary School had been involved in Terracycle recycling projects in the past. Mason learned about that school’s successes and brought the idea to Columbus two years ago. At first, Columbus students recycled only aluminum and plastic juice pouches. It has collected more than 13,000 so far, picking them up at a clip of about 125 a week. Last year, an after-school recycling club added granola and energy bar wrappers. This year, it’s expanded to other food packaging —chip bags, salty snack bags, cheese packaging, tortilla and tortilla chip bags, and tubs and lids that held cream cheese, yogurt, butter and other dairy products. In addition, students also can recycle mechanical pencils, pens, markers, Elmer’s glue packages, plastic tape dispensers and tape cores. Used batteries are being collected separately. PTA members will take them to local hazardous waste collection events. Teachers and staff members taught their students about the recycling project, explaining what could be recycled and how to do it. Students drop items into marked bins in the cafeteria, often encouraging one another to recycle rather than throwing things away. “My fourth-grader, Isaac, will see a friend with a package and tell him he can put it in the Terracycle box. A lot of kids do that,” Mason said. The PTA volunteer collects the recyclables on Fridays, spending about 30 minutes a week on the project. “It’s cumbersome to some extent, but I remind myself every week that we’re taking things out of the waste stream and earning a little money for the school. “And usually, several kids from Kids on the Block want to help,” she said. “The kids are pretty excited.” More information about the recycled materials company can be found at www.terracycle.com.

By Kate Bertrand Connolly, Packaging Editor | 11/02/2012 Using less packaging can be good for the environment, but it can also deliver business benefits by reducing packaging costs. No processor understands these dual advantages better than family-owned MOM Brands, Minneapolis. MOM Brands, formerly Malt-O-Meal Co., has long focused on keeping packaging and other operating costs down to ensure competitive pricing for its products. A key tactic is to use bags instead of bag-in-box packaging for its ready-to-eat cereals. Currently about 90 percent of MOM Brands' cereals are packaged in resealable bags. These products include Honey Nut Scooters, Crispy Rice, Golden Puffs and Frosted Mini Spooners. Three Sisters- and Bear River Valley-branded cereals also are packed in bags. The company only uses paperboard cartons if retailers won't accept cereal in bags, or if consumers are so biased against bags that they'd snub the product if it were sold without a box. "We started packaging our cereals in bags when we started producing ready-to-eat cereal back in the mid-1960s," says Linda Fisher, director of marketing communications for MOM Brands. "We did it primarily because it was a cost-saving packaging solution. We don't need a paperboard box covering the bag. And over time we have maintained that."   The cost component is essential, as MOM Brands' business strategy combines "high-quality cereal, bag packaging and affordable pricing," Fisher explains. A product like MOM Brands' Coco Roos, for example, provides a lower-cost alternative to General Mills Cocoa Puffs.

Is it time to bag the box?

With consumers' interest in ecological issues growing in the past several years, MOM Brands recognized that its bag packaging could be a strong selling point—if consumers fully understood the bags' green benefits.

“We started packaging our cereals in bags when we started producing ready-to-eat cereal back in the mid-1960s. We did it primarily because it was a cost-saving packaging solution. We don't need a paperboard box covering the bag. And over time we have maintained that.” - Linda Fisher, MOM Brands

To get the word out, the company launched its Bag the Box campaign in 2010. Bag the Box works with traditional media and social media such as Facebook and Twitter to educate consumers about the environmental virtues of bags versus boxes. Although MOM Brands' bags are not recyclable, they provide noteworthy waste reduction benefits, versus bag-in-box cereal, by eliminating a layer of packaging. According to the company, its packaging system creates 75 percent less consumer packaging waste. Also, according to the Bag the Box website, more than 2.3 billion cereal boxes are produced in the U.S. annually. Manufacturing them requires 345 million pounds of paperboard and, to power the box plants, 2.4 trillion BTUs of energy. With regard to shipping, the site explains, "If the boxes travel 100 miles to get to the cereal plant (conservative guess), this consumes 1,400 tons or the equivalent of 46 tanker trucks full of fuel." To save money, MOM Brands doesn't advertise on television. But its cost-effective Bag the Box campaign, which has generated plenty of buzz, shows that TV ads aren't necessary to engage consumers. Fisher says the campaign generated 55 million media impressions and 4.2 million video views in its first 18 months.

Upcycling into the future

To provide an end of life for its bags that doesn't include landfill, MOM Brands has partnered with TerraCycle Inc., Trenton, N.J., to create the Cereal Bag Brigade. Brigade participants, representing schools and other organizations, collect used MOM Brands bags and ship them to TerraCycle for upcycling into products like backpacks. TerraCycle accepts bags from Malt-O-Meal, Three Sisters, Bear River Valley, Isabel's Way and Sally's cereals. The Cereal Bag Brigade collects about 25,000 bags per month. MOM Brands also ships to TerraCycle all film that it cannot use for packaging, such as ends of film rolls and waste generated when changing over equipment. The company's bag material is made from a food-grade, polyethylene-based film; details of the multilayer film's structure are proprietary. TerraCycle currently is conducting a pilot program that lets individual households pack up mixtures of used packaging and ship them to TerraCycle for upcycling. MOM Brands is one of the brand owners participating in the pilot. "This would give every consumer who buys a package of our cereal the ability to send it someplace where it would be repurposed and made into something else," Fisher says. "That's a great end-of-life solution."

Beyond the package

MOM Brands' environmental and financial sustainability efforts extend well beyond packaging, shaping its plant operations and shipping practices. The company buys renewable (wind) energy credits to offset all the electricity used to make its broad assortment of natural cereals. These products are sold under the Mom's Best Naturals, Isabel's Way, Bear River Valley, Three Sisters and Sally's brand names. In addition, the company has created strict waste-reduction goals for its plants. "The goal is to recycle 95 percent of our waste, and we have hit that in our largest plant [Northfield, Minn.] year after year," Fisher says, noting that even food waste is recycled — by pig farmers. The plants also make it a priority to reduce energy and water use. To improve shipping efficiency, the company participates in the U.S. EPA's SmartWay Transport Partnership. The SmartWay program helps companies improve their carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions related to shipping freight. MOM Brands is active in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), as well. CDP is an international not-for-profit organization that collects and reports data on companies' greenhouse gas emissions, climate change strategies and water use.

Bottom line

The success of MOM Brands' strategies vis-à-vis packaging and operations is evident in its financials. According to Fisher, sales figures show that "our ready-to-eat cereal business is up 7.1 percent, in dollars for 2012 year-to-date." In contrast, the national brand owners with which the company competes have experienced flat or declining sales during the same period. "We are so sure of our business model and our strategy of high-quality products at affordable prices that we're investing in growth," Fisher says, adding that MOM Brands has invested $500 million in expansion and capacity enhancements since 2008. She adds, "We're the only cereal company investing in new plants in this country." The company just opened a greenfield one in Asheboro, N.C. "The beauty of being privately held is that our shareholders say, ‘We don't care about the next quarter. We care about the next generation.' We have very patient capital." Considering that Malt-O-Meal was founded in 1919 with $900 in poker winnings, "patient" pretty well sums it up.

02.11.2012 – Der Social Entrepreneur Tom Szaky wurde vom US-amerikanischen Magazin inc.com im Jahr 2006 zum „CEO Nummer Eins unter 30“ gekürt, und das noch vor Mark Zuckerberg. Mit seinem Unternehmen Terracycle (www.terracycle.de) wollte Tom Szaky den Amerikanern das Recyceln näher bringen – mit sehr großem Erfolg. Seit dem Jahr 2011 gibt es Terracycle auch in Deutschland.

Terracycle verwertet nicht-recycelbaren Müll

Terracycle verfolgt mit seinem einzigartigen Konzept das Ziel, nicht-recycelbaren Müll in nützliche Produkte zu verwandeln. Interessierte können sich auf der Webseite von Terracycle registrieren und eines von mehreren Sammelprojekten aussuchen. Anschließend wird nicht-recycelbarer Müll gesammelt und an das Unternehmen geschickt, welches den Müll in riesigen Hallen lagern. Für jedes eingeschickte Müllobjekt vergibt Terracycle Punkte, welche nachher in Spenden für gemeinnützige Zwecke umgewandelt werden. Alleine im Rahmen einer Aktion, bei der Caprisonne-Trinktüten gesammelt wurden, wurde eine stolze Spendensumme in Höhe von 1.000.000,- Dollar erzielt. In den USA gibt es mittlerweile schon über 12 Millionen fleißige Müllsammler, welche sich gemeinsam mit Terracycle für einen guten Zweck einsetzen. Terracycle hat es dabei besonders auf Schulen abgesehen, die im Rahmen verschiedener Projekte Müll sammeln und dafür Spendengelder erhalten. Zu den beliebtesten Sammelobjekten zählen beispielsweise Chipstüten, Getränkeverpackungen oder Tuben, die sonst in Verbrennungsanlagen landen würden. Knapp zwei Milliarden Objekte hat Terracycle schon zu Produkten verarbeitet. Speziell für diesen Zweck arbeiten dort Wissenschaftler und Designer. Diese sorgen dafür, dass neue Produkte aus dem Müll entstehen. Handtaschen, Ordner, Toilettensitze oder Mülltonnen sind nur einige Beispiele für die breite Produktpalette, die mithilfe von Terracycle entstehen. Für die Herstellung dieser Produkte hat Terracycle mehrere Partnerunternehmen, darunter Nestlé, Coca Cola und L’Oréal. Zum einen übernehmen sie die Versandkosten der Müllsammeler und zum anderen zahlen sie eine Lizenzgebühr an Terracycle, um deren Logo auf den recycelten Produkten zu verwenden. Abgesehen davon bezahlen die Partnerunternehmen für den Müll, den Terracycle von den Sammlern bekommt. Aus Sicht von Terracycle ist dies ein sehr cleveres und profitables Geschäftsmodell und die Partnerunternehmen tun etwas Gutes für die Umwelt.

Det er nemlig et fantastisk firma der ute som heter TerraCycle som jobber med å eliminere ideen om søppel. Og det er bare så genialt fordi det er akkurat der jeg også er! Hvorfor skal vi kaste så uendelig mye, bare fordi det kom som en ekstradel til for eksempel maten vår, eller dopapiret vårt? Vi har tidligere brukt bla annet dopapirrullene til å lage nisser til jul, eller bruke de som bowlingkjegler. Hermetikkboksen fra de hakkede tomatene har blitt blyantholder til barna, selvsagt med litt gjenbrukspapp på, og enkelt design fra mine favorittkunstnere. TerraCycle bruker faktisk brukte kaffekapsler til å lage nye produkter som blomsterpotter eller benker. Lag et kaffebord av gamle teposer eller en mosaikk av kaffekopper. Kun fantasien setter grenser. Det viktigste er at bidraget ditt har kaffe, te eller kakao som tema, og at det er laget av materialer som ellers havner i søpla. Gjerne så ekstremt og utradisjonelt som mulig—tenk på avfall som normalt sett ikke ville bli gjenbrukt. Send et bilde av bidraget ditt til konkurranser@terracycle.no, og fortell oss hvilke materialer du har brukt. Konkurransen starter 22. oktober, og fristen for å sende inn ditt bidrag går ut 21. november. Du kan lese mer her.

Adolescentes de favela paulistana criam projeto que transforma bitucas de cigarro em papel ecológico. Empresas já produzem plásticos e adubo com a mesma matéria-prima

This holiday season, give an awesome, unique gift that helps the planet with one of the many cool upcycled items from TerraCycle. From backpacks made out of your kids used juice pouches to speakers crafted from M&M packages, you’ll find something for everyone on your list at TerraCycle. Plus, you can feel good knowing that your gift isn’t causing extra strain on the planet! I received two really cool items from TerraCycle for this review: the USPS Coin Pouch and the M&M speaker set. Both would make awesome gifts for just about anyone on your list.

The USPS Mail Sack Coin Pouch

It takes a lot of work to look our best, and especially a lot of products: Conditioner, bronzer, mascara and moisturizer, among others.  With class presentations, sorority functions, date nights, formals and girls-night-outs, these products create a ton of waste over time. It’s easy to toss used beauty supplies in the trash, but what makes us look good for one night will spend years in a landfill! Here’s how to look great and help the environment by recycling your waste with TerraCycle: