Six Flags theme parks and Polly-O are offering extra discounts this summer, as well as easy recycling opportunities. Visitors who bring specially marked Polly-O String Cheese packaging to the Six Flags Over Georgia will receive $15 off general admission any day of the week or a Free Kid’s Ticket with purchase of general admission ticket on weekdays.

Garnier’s Cleaner Greener Tour is coming to Dallas! Look for the tour vehicle parked at the Walmart location on Cockrell Hill Road in Dallas starting today, Thursday, May 26 and tomorrow Friday, May 27 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Garnier is kicking off a packaging collection and recycling program with TerraCycle. They have also announced 'Pure Clean', a new biodegradable hair care line. Take any of your hair care, skin care or cosmetic packaging to the tour vehicle to be recycled by TerraCycle and score some free samples of Pure Clean! After these tour ends, you will still be able to participate in this recycling program. Send in your packaging from home, the program is Free to join and all shipping costs are paid. TerraCycle will also pay $.02 for each unit of waste collected to the charity of the collector’s choice. Awesome!

This week, Garnier’s Cleaner Greener Tour will be parked at Walmart on Cockrell Hill Road in Dallas from Wednesday-Friday. Walmart shoppers can bring any and all hair care, skin care and cosmetic packaging to the tour vehicle to be recycled by TerraCycle and score some free samples of Pure Clean. Garnier is kicking off a packaging collection and recycling program with TerraCycle called the Personal Care and Beauty Brigade and announcing Pure Clean, a new biodegradable hair care line.

Alright, my inbox is yet again full of great stuff again this week, and rather than have 5 million new posts for y'all today, here's a bit of contests, coupons, charity news, and fun stuff for you all in one nifty post. You know the drill, right? ;) Have fun entering, save a little money, or support a needful charity - the choice is yours. Sprout and TerraCycle are asking parents WHY they are protecting the planet for the sake of their children. Email contest@teams.terracycle.net and tell them about it, in 250 words or less, for the chance to win a month’s supply of Sprout Organic Baby Food, a TerraCycle bag, and $100 for a green project. Three runner-ups will receive prize packs, too! For more info, please see http://www.terracycle.net/Protecting-the-Planet-for-Baby-Contest. You can also sign up for the Sprout Baby Food Pouch Brigade to collect and send your Sprout pouches to TerraCycle, where they will be upcycled or recycled into new products. TerraCycle and Sprout pay $.02 per pouch to the charity of the collector’s choice and all shipping costs. For more info, please visithttp://www.terracycle.net/brigades/sprout-baby-food-pouch-brigade?locale=en-US.

El upcycling (en inglés) se traduce en suprareciclaje y consiste en convertir productos que normalmente tiramos a la basura en otro de igual o mayor utilidad y valor. Los consumidores logran nuevos productos y se ahorran dinero. El medio ambiente también lo agradece: los residuos y el gasto de materias vírgenes se reducen y se da una vida más larga a los productos. Cada vez más artistas y empresas practican con éxito el supra-reciclaje.

A few years ago we were approached by Nomacorc, leaders in the production of synthetic wine corks, to run a “cork brigade.” We needed millions of corks at the time to create a cork board product that Office Max was ordering from us, and we concluded that wine, as controlled vices go, is rather innocuous. In the end, there wasn’t much internal debate, so we partnered rather quickly with the alcohol industry. At TerraCycle we run free collection programs for waste that allow individuals, community groups and offices to collect waste and send it to TerraCycle to be recycled or “upcycled” into new products. Schools happen to be a very big source of collections for TerraCycle. In fact, we are in more than 60 percent of all schools in America.

When I started TerraCycle, we quickly came to a defining crossroads: Did we want to sell our made-from-waste products to independent retailers or to big-box retailers? Basically, we were told that if we sold to the big-box chains we would be blackballed by the independents. At the time, going independent seemed the more tempting path, and that was also what our advisers suggested. We would have a broader range of small distributors who care about green issues and who would help us build our brand. A broad range of clients would also offer security against the risk of being dropped by a big-box client. Perhaps an even more important factor attempting to avoid potential damage to the brand. If you go big-box, you may face backlash from consumers who will accuse you of making a deal with “the man.” Still, we decided to go big-box from the beginning for a simple reason: scale.

Luego de su éxito en la Ciudad de México, llega a Bogotá por segundo año consecutivo el Seminario Internacional Envase Sostenible organizado por las publicaciones latinoamericanas especializadas El Empaque (www.elempaque.com), Tecnología del Plástico (www.plastico.com) y Conversión (www.conversión.com), de Carvajal Información, empresa del Grupo Carvajal. Durante los días 1 y 2 de junio los conferencistas Tom Szaky, Eduardo de la Tijera, Minal Mistry, Adriana Wolff, Jürgen Klaric, Gary Jones, Karli Verghese, Edgar Rojas y María del Pilar Noriega, entre otros,  articularán una nutrida agenda académica que aborda técnicas, metodologías y métodos que responden a la creciente y necesaria preocupación por la sostenibilidad ambiental de los empaques y envases en el mundo. En desarrollo de este propósito, el Seminario ofrece la experiencia y el conocimiento de conferencistas y expertos de primer nivel, así como una  exhibición industrial de materiales y tecnología para la producción de soluciones de empaque sostenibles. El evento cuenta con el patrocinio de las firmas multinacionales Braskem, Carvajal Empaques, Clariant, DuPont, HP, Kodak, NatureWorks-Quimicoplasticos, Peldar y Tetra Pak. La realización de este evento, pionero en América Latina, responde a la gran preocupación por la sostenibilidad ambiental de los empaques y envases, pues son elementos directamente ligados con el desarrollo de productos más seguros y amigables con el medio ambiente. Precisamente, las compañías fabricantes de bienes, los productores de empaque, los gobiernos, las ONGs e inclusive los consumidores finales tienen este tema como una prioridad en sus agendas. Así es que nunca el tema medioambiental en la industria de los empaques tuvo tanto protagonismo como ahora.

Luego de su éxito en la Ciudad de México, llega a Bogotá por segundo año consecutivo el Seminario Internacional Envase Sostenible organizado por las publicaciones latinoamericanas especializadas El Empaque (www.elempaque.com), Tecnología del Plástico (www.plastico.com) y Conversión (www.conversión.com), de Carvajal Información, empresa del Grupo Carvajal. Durante los días 1 y 2 de junio los conferencistas Tom Szaky, Eduardo de la Tijera, Minal Mistry, Adriana Wolff, Jürgen Klaric, Gary Jones, Karli Verghese, Edgar Rojas y María del Pilar Noriega, entre otros, articularán una nutrida agenda académica que aborda técnicas, metodologías y métodos que responden a la creciente y necesaria preocupación por la sostenibilidad ambiental de los empaques y envases en el mundo. En desarrollo de este propósito, el Seminario ofrece la experiencia y el conocimiento de conferencistas y expertos de primer nivel, así como una exhibición industrial de materiales y tecnología para la producción de soluciones de empaque sostenibles. El evento cuenta con el patrocinio de las firmas multinacionales Braskem, Carvajal Empaques, Clariant, DuPont, HP, Kodak, NatureWorks-Quimicoplasticos, Peldar y Tetra Pak. La realización de este evento, pionero en América Latina, responde a la gran preocupación por la sostenibilidad ambiental de los empaques y envases, pues son elementos directamente ligados con el desarrollo de productos más seguros y amigables con el medio ambiente. Precisamente, las compañías fabricantes de bienes, los productores de empaque, los gobiernos, las ONGs e inclusive los consumidores finales tienen este tema como una prioridad en sus agendas. Así es que nunca el tema medioambiental en la industria de los empaques tuvo tanto protagonismo como ahora.

And as previously articulated, TerraCycle partners with brands to re/upcycle hard-to-recycle branded packaging, like Cliff Bar wrappers, Capri-Sun juice pouches, and so on. By setting up collection sites across America and the world—called brigades—TerraCycle is able to collect the quantity necessary to economically justify the reprocessing of it. While everything technically is recyclable, the costs of collection (curb side vs. drop off vs. deposits) and sortation (single stream vs. comingled vs. manual/automated sorting technologies) for multi-material packaging usually exceeds the cost of virgin material/packaging production; this results in the likelihood that said packaging is not being recycled in most American communities. When brands partner with TerraCycle, however, they fund the shipment of the hard-to-recycle post consumer collected packaging to a TerraCycle facility, where it stays until it is re/upcycled into new products/packaging/material. Part of the fee for partnering with TerraCycle also goes into R&D to better understand how to get the most value out of the collected “waste” and PR, so that the partnered brands receive the marketing collateral inherent in such a warm and fuzzy initiative.