It seems like manufacturers rush us through the year. Just after school is out, we are treated to back-to-school advertising. In August, Halloween is already all over the stores. Before Halloween is past, we are rushed right past Thanksgiving to Christmas.   Personally, as soon as Halloween ends, I think of it as the season of giving. There is no better area to demonstrate the feeling of “neighbors helping neighbors.”   That has been the motto of the Item Appeal, a nonprofit near-and-dear to my heart, where volunteers ensure that every penny raised during the year (most of it in November and December) goes back to the community to help those in need. Often, we see people who previously needed help getting back on their feet and giving back. The Appeal volunteers are the best around. We may be biased, but we don’t think so!   You need look no further than this year’s George Bailey award winners to see those who care about their neighbors. Alan Gage and David Goodale, in addition to their work with the Elks, run chicken shoots almost every weekend in the spring and fall to help great causes. Last weekend, it was the Clinton Adult Learning Center. Families who have lost everything in a fire, and people suffering great illnesses, have all benefited from the duo’s zaniness at these events. Fellow honoree, Cid DeLeo, has shown a love for Clinton, and its people, all her life. She will share a stage with the Chicken Shoot Guys.   Also being honored that night will be Thomas Haemer, who has helped out all over the community, from Gael Force’s FIRST robotics team to the Clinton Historical Society. He will be honored with a newly-minted Lifetime Achievement Award because we honestly cannot think of enough ways to honor those who promote doing good in this community.   Speaking of doing good, last week’s Item featured Clinton High School’s new food pantry for students in need. Organizer Rose Solar told us that, after the story ran, three residents stopped in and dropped off big bags of groceries.   Over the weekend, the Knights of Columbus gave away winter coats for children and adults in an annual event that keeps giving. The group has already agreed to help another coat giveaway, sponsored by the Thomas J. Serewicz, Sr. Foundation so, hopefully, any leftover coats will find those who really need them.   In this issue of The Item, A. Anthony Garreffi kicks off the campaign associated with his second in the “I Caught Santa” series. Last year, the first book, which dealt with issues of homelessness, helped raise $500 for WHEAT. This year, with a book called “Respect Your Toys,” Garreffi is committed to raising $750, plus a $250 donation from Avidia Bank, to WHEAT, while also working with the Hasbro Toy/Terracycle recycling program to collect broken toys so they can be fully recycled.   November is a hairy month for many police officers and firefighters, who give up their razors for a month while collecting money for their favorite charities, like Cops for Kids with Cancer. Many of these stations will also host Toys for Tots collections, after collecting surplus Halloween candy for veterans’ care packages.   We have food drives at many of the local schools, the diaper pantry serving area mothers and so many other people looking to make a difference in their communities. It is overwhelming to see the need in our communities. However, the residents always seem ready to help.   Throughout the season of giving, The Item will try to shine a spotlight on some of these efforts. Because none of us can help everyone, but if all of us can help some, we can make a real difference. Figure out how you want to help and jump in.   Jan Gottesman is managing editor of The Item. She can be reached at clintonitem@yahoo.com.

For PTA Secretary Lizzie Montgomery, helping Norton Elementary School to win outdoor garden beds, a picnic table and gazebo made entirely out of recycled materials was no easy feat.   “I heard about TerraCycle about four or five years ago, but at the time I couldn’t figure out how to participate,” she said. “Our family is big into recycling and we’re glad we could expand it to the entire school community.”   TerraCycle is a national organization that aims to combat climate change by upping the public’s recycling awareness. It is a free program that businesses and local organizations can use in order to safely and sustainably dispose of non-recyclable or difficult-to-recycle waste.   The contest, which began at the beginning of the summer and ended in late September, asked community members to visit the TerraCycle website and vote for the school of their choice as many times as they wanted. The competition was open to all schools in the country.   Montgomery, who had never posted on the Cheshire Community Forum on Facebook, began posting daily reminders  on the site over the summer, encouraging everyone to vote for Norton.   “Up until now, I had no real way of participating in TerraCycle’s competitions” Montgomery mentioned. “They needed a certain amount of pounds in order to even enter the competitions, which is hard for one family to come up with. But if a whole school or community does it, it becomes a little easier.”   Norton Elementary School’s Principal Kelly Grillo is excited to share the win with her students and staff.   “I am personally very grateful for Lizzie Montgomery for all of her efforts to make this win possible,” she said. “She has made TerraCycle a part of our school community. We will continue to support this initiative as we are dedicated to doing our part to reduce litter that would otherwise end up in a landfill or incineration facility. Our students and staff will enjoy the new additions to our campus and are proud that we are making a difference for our environment.”   TerraCycle’s programs use waste materials that typically would have no value and turn them into products that can be resold or reused for something else. While not everything can be recycled, TerraCycle’s website has a hefty list of what can be, including different wrappers and various plastic containers that any student would find in their lunchbox.   “We put collection boxes in each classroom,” Montgomery explained. “When you collect a certain weight of items you can have it picked up and you get points associated with what was brought in, and then you can utilize the points for different things through TerraCycle.”   For this particular contest, votes were tallied by the number of people who specifically voted on TerraCycle’s website for their school. Montgomery’s dedicated efforts to remind Cheshire residents to vote every single day was a big help in Norton’s success.   “I thought it would start to get really annoying and people wouldn’t like it,” Montgomery said. “But when it was over, people came up to me and said that the only reason they remembered to vote was because of me, so I guess it helped.”   The installation date is unknown, but Montgomery still has big plans for Norton.   “They will have a contest in the spring for a new playground,” Montgomery said excitedly. “So Norton will be back participating in that later on.”   Find out more about TerraCycle online at https://www.terracycle.com/en-US.

Allowing a toothbrush to dry between uses is effective for killing most bacteria that may be on them, however, some strains of bacteria can continue to thrive even in dry conditions. Preventing this build-up of bacteria is an important reason to clean your toothbrush regularly, similar to a dish cloth or sponge. If you’re sick, you may want to clean the toothbrush daily or even twice daily until the illness subsides to avoid re-infecting yourself. Having a member of the family who refuses to keep the toilet lid down while flushing is another great reason to regularly clean your toothbrush (as keeping the lid up allows the fecal matter to spray up into the air and onto surrounding surfaces, like toothbrushes sitting on the sink counter, yuck!). Use one of the methods below to reduce or remove the bacteria on your toothbrush.  

Cleaning the Toothbrush with Peroxide

You Will Need:

 

• Hydrogen peroxide
• Water
• A cup

 

Steps to Clean the Toothbrush:

  1. Put the toothbrush in the cup with the brush head facing down. 2. Fill the cup with enough hydrogen peroxide to fully cover the brush head. 3. Allow the peroxide to fizz until finished. 4. When the peroxide has finished fizzing, the bacteria has been killed and the toothbrush can be removed from the cup.  

Cleaning the Toothbrush with a Denture Tablet

You Will Need:

 

• A denture tablet
• Water
• A cup

 

Steps to Clean the Toothbrush:

  1. Place the toothbrush in the cup with the brush head facing down. 2. Fill the cup with water. 3. Drop a denture tablet into the cup. 4. Allow the denture tablet to fully fizz. 5. When the tablet has finished fizzing, the toothbrush is clean and can be removed from the cup.  

Cleaning the Toothbrush with UV Light

  There are toothbrush holders made now that have a UV light inside and will kill the bacteria on your toothbrush as soon as you store it away in the holder. Doing this can drastically reduce the need to clean your toothbrush, though we do still recommend the occasional cleaning with one of the cleaning solutions mentioned above as well to fizz away debris between that can gather between the bristles (even if that debris is bacteria-free). These devices can be found online or occasionally in some supermarkets.  

Additional Tips

 

• Store your toothbrush in an upright position to allow the moisture to drip down from the brush head so that it has the best chance of fully drying out between cleanings, which will kill many types of bacteria.
• The American Dental Association recommends replacing a toothbrush every 3-4 months as this is the usual amount of time for the bristles to become worn and therefore less effective.
• Clean your used toothbrush, then keep it with your cleaning supplies for tasks like scrubbing grout lines.
• Many toothbrushes can be recycled! Colgate brand toothbrushes can be turned in to the Terracycle program, and other types of toothbrushes may be eligible for recycling through the Preserve program at Whole Foods in the U.S. according to Recycle Nation.  Nylon toothbrush bristles can be pulled out of any type of brush for recycling at an appropriate facility.
• For your next toothbrush, consider buying a bamboo handle brush that can be composted. There are many varieties of this brush available in major supermarkets now (Thank you Colgate!).

As lentes de contato descartáveis, ou lentes “one day” como também são chamadas, são as lentes feitas para uso diário e que são descartadas no final do dia.

It is now possible for clinic clients to drop their used toothbrushes, empty toothpaste tubes and floss containers into a specially designed container directly at the Dental Center. It is the company Terracycle, specialized in the recovery of this type of waste, which will handle the recycling at the Dental Center.   "We have always been very sensitive to the environment," said Dr. Isabelle Deschênes, owner of the Dental Center. "We have been recycling paper, cardboard and ink cartridges for a long time now and we are no longer offering individual water bottles to our customers. It was important, however, to do even more ... "   In addition, customers and staff using the Center's coffee machine will also be able to collect coffee capsules. The same goes for all latex and nitrile gloves; which can represent more than 2,000 gloves per month.   Ms. Deschênes adds:   "These actions to help the environment will not be the last. There is still some way to go to manage a completely green dental clinic. "

From wine corks to liquor bottles with non-recyclable caps to soapy dishwater that ultimately drips back into the water supply, restaurants generate an amazing amount of waste on a daily basis – and one small Brooklyn wine bar is looking to stem the tide. According to the Green Restaurant Association, the average dining destination creates 100,000 pounds of garbage per year. Restaurateurs can divert 90% of that from the landfill with the proper recycling and composting program, the organization says, but Rhodora has taken the concept even further, completely eliminating all waste from its operations.   And to be clear, that means everything. No single-use plastics, no products or packaging that can’t be recycled, upcycled, or composted, and no trash in the kitchen, the dining room...or in the bathroom. Wines are natural and low-intervention, from small farms, and the menu – inspired by the conservas tapas bars of the Iberian Peninsula – is short and sweet, just tinned fish and seafood, pickles and charcuterie, cheeses and simple salads, with ice cream for dessert. Rhodora is the work of the Oberon Group, a local restaurant group with a focus on community and sustainability, and though it’s the first zero-waste bar in Brooklyn, and likely the first in the US as a whole, it’s not the first in the world. The UK’s Silo, which opened in Brighton in 2014 and relocated to London just this fall, served as an inspiration, and the chef there helped the Rhodora team navigate through unfamiliar waters.   As Grub Street reports, they sought out cheeses sans wax rinds, breads that could be delivered by bike, and oysters that would come in a closed-loop delivery system – i.e., in packaging that goes back to the supplier to be reused. There’s a composter for food scraps, and as for that bathroom issue, there's TerraCycle, a New Jersey recycling company that handles hazardous waste – one of their collection boxes has been installed in the facilities.   The idea here, the team says, is a straightforward one: to set a standard for others to follow. “The food world has traditionally done such a poor job of being environmental stewards,” Oberon deputy director Halley Chambers told Grub Street. “If we can build a model of a sustainable trash-free relationship, suppliers can start replicating it.”

Most of us are familiar with recycling as a way to prevent litter and save resources. We look for the blue bin in public, many of us have curbside recycling pickup, and some have access to drop-off points provided by a municipality or local retailer. But as the world is waking up to the fact that most of our public recycling is not recycled, confusion abounds.

The focus on recycling has largely been on items generated in the kitchen or related to food and beverage (think aluminum cans, glass bottles), but the bathroom in particular is filled with products and packaging that are not municipally recyclable. All that plastic can be recycled, right? Not always, and infrequently.

Plastic personal care containers host a range of resin identification codes (not “recycling numbers,” as many believe) that indicate what type of plastic a container is made of. Because local programs accept different types of plastic, what’s recyclable in one town may not be in the next. This can be very confusing to consumers who want to do the right thing.

These are resin identification numbers (not “recycling numbers,” as many believe), and not all containers with these numbers can be recycled.

But the fact is very few items generated in the bathroom, many entirely made up of plastic, fall into the curbside recyclable category. The small sizes of the caps, pots, wands, trays of makeup and tubes of skin care fall through the cracks at recycling facilities. In addition, multi-compositional packages (i.e. metal spring in a plastic pump top, tube made of layers of plastic and foil) require separating and processing that your municipal recycler does not have the capability to handle.

Plus, nearly every color of plastic that isn’t clear or white (most beauty packages) is considered non-recyclable, because colors cannot be turned into any other color, which makes them undesirable in the market for raw material. With the high collection and processing costs for most personal care and cosmetics, landfilling and incineration are considered the easiest, least costly options.

Of course, this is at the expense of the environment, and the demand for accessible recycling options for cosmetic and beauty care products is recognized around the globe. Paula’s Choice, a premium beauty brand, is one of the latest companies to team up with TerraCycle to create a national recycling program to fill the gaps in the current system.

We’ve partnered on a free recycling program for all Paula’s Choice Skincare packaging. Image via TerraCycle.

Those familiar with TerraCycle know we believe everything is technically recyclable, having proven items such as cigarettes, chewing gum, and even dirty diapers can be repurposed into material for new products. The technology is there. But by sponsoring a national solution, beauty brands working with us also support an end-market for the material, ensuring the beauty and cosmetics empties are cycled around and turned into something new.

Not all plastics are considered recyclable, but personal care and cosmetics products are updating their offerings to address our desires to recycle more and reduce our impacts. By choosing brands committed to this ethos, you support companies and manufacturers stepping up to change, drive a shift away from the “business as usual” of non-recyclability, and create a more beautiful beauty industry overall.

Desenvolver produtos já com foco no reaproveitamento, em uma segunda vida, na economia circular. Desde 2018 esta é uma das metas globais da 3M quando se trata de sustentabilidade – e de negócios. “O tema tem um peso enorme aqui dentro. É uma preocupação desde o início de cada projeto”, conta Marcelo Gandur, gerente técnico da companhia no Brasil e responsável pelo comitê corporativo destinado à sustentabilidade. Segundo ele, um desenvolvimento pode ser cancelado caso não se encaixe nas metas nessa área:

“A sustentabilidade é um valor tão essencial que o lançamento de um produto pode ser interrompido caso não seja possível desenhar soluções de eliminação do uso de materiais poluentes e de destinação correta no descarte”

Dentre os muitos produtos de nosso dia-a-dia que poluem o meio-ambiente, poucos são tão volumosos e prejudiciais, pela quantidade, a frequência e a demora para a decomposição, quanto as cápsulas de café. Só no Reino Unido são cerca de 95 milhões de xícaras de café diárias – e, no mundo, estima-se que anualmente mais de 20 bilhões de cápsulas não-biodegradáveis são jogadas no lixo sem qualquer preparo. Diante de tal dilema, a gigante do café expresso italiana Lavazza está oferecendo uma alternativa ecologicamente correta: uma cápsula de café biodegradável, que pode ser utilizada em composteiras.

It has now been more than a year since cannabis has been legal in Canada, and the cannabis business has seen its ups and downs. One Exchange Traded Fund, Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, is down 50 per cent since the end of March.   In spite of market fluctuations, Canadian licensed cannabis producers are expected to sell approximately $1.1 billion worth of legal pot in the first full year of legalization, according to an analysis of retail sales data by Cannabis Benchmarks.   Competing with black market cannabis is still the number one challenge for legal providers, both on cost and packaging.   One area that consumers aren't very happy with is all the packaging that surrounds even small quantities of legal pot. Unlike the black market, where a single-use plastic baggie is still typical, most government-approved packaging is often multi-layered and all plastic.   Cannabis packaging is the purview of the federal government, and local dispensaries, including B.C. government operations, have no say.   Castanet reached out to the B.C. Ministry of the Attorney General for comment on excessive cannabis packaging and was told rules regarding the packaging of cannabis products are established by the federal government.   "We want to minimize waste from cannabis packaging and encourage both consumers and retailers to recycle packaging... Cannabis regulations allow retailers to set up in-store cannabis packaging recycling programs, and we encourage them to do so," the ministry said.   Customers can also recycle cannabis packaging at home using the blue bin residential recycling program.   The global packaging market for cannabis products is expected to reach $25 billion by 2025, according to a report from Zion Market Research.   For now, Health Canada requirements call for cannabis packaging to be large enough to display labelling information, including warnings. It also has to be child-resistant, prevent contamination and keep the product dry.   B.C. retailers, including Hobo Cannabis Dispensary in Kelowna, say it's the number one complaint they receive from customers. "A little too much, absolutely," says manager Cole McCrea. "It's definitely the most frequent complaint that we hear – the size and scale of all the packaging being used as being unnecessary."   As the legal cannabis market matures, presumably there will be adjustments and greener packaging options down the road. For now, Tweed has partnered with Terracycle to launch Canada's first and largest cannabis packaging recycling program.   "When Tweed launched the partnership with TerraCycle, it was the first recycling program of its kind for cannabis packaging. Reaching this incredible milestone of over 1,000,000 pieces collected in less than one year demonstrates the value of the program," says Mark Zekulin, CEO, Canopy Growth Corporation, Tweed's parent company.   "Anybody can bring in any cannabis container to any (participating) store, we take it in here and ship out weekly."   The TerraCycle recycling program transforms the plastic pot containers into plastic pellets.