Nearly 30 pounds of old crayons from all over the country land on Kim Martonosi’s doorstep every day. With the help of her kids, she sorts the worn and broken wax sticks by color, melts the bins of blue-greys and light greens and pinks down to a gooey swirl, and shapes the new creations into stars and earthworms and simple sticks. Over the past 25 years, Martonosi’s business, Crazy Crayons, has salvaged just over 120,000 pounds of colorful wax, the equivalent of about 12 million new coloring tools.

TerraCycle announced recently the 2018 Save Water Garden promotion, the first-ever pledging contest with Colgate-Palmolive (“Colgate”), the global oral care leader, and regional retailer ShopRite. The partnership calls upon school students, teachers and communities to take the pledge to save water on behalf of their school for a chance to win one of two recycled gardens made from recycled oral care waste.

Nearly 20% of U.S. contact lens wearers flush their disposable lenses down the toilet or drain when done with them, a recent study has shown. Those 2-3 billion contact lenses then become 20-23 metric tons of wastewater-borne plastics polluting the earth annually. Arizona State University scientists are reporting the first nationwide study that shows how consumers, by discarding used lenses down the drain, may be unknowingly contributing to plastic pollution. According to the study, lenses that are washed down the drain end up at wastewater plants and then in sewage sludge. For about every two pounds of wastewater sludge, a pair of contact lenses typically can be found. Sewage sludge is routinely applied on land for sludge disposal and soil conditioning, thereby creating a pathway of macro- and microplastics from lenses to enter terrestrial ecosystems where potential adverse impacts are poorly understood. HOW ECPs CAN HELP ECPs can help make their contact lens patients aware of the environment impact of disposable plastic lenses (even if not flushed, the lenses and blister packs end up in landfills) AND help them recycle the materials instead of throwing them away. The Bausch + Lomb One by One contact recycling program, now in its second year, allows ECPs to help their patients recycle their used contact lenses and blister packs. The program provides practices with receptacles for their patients’ contact lens waste (or, patients can recycle via an at-home program). The lenses, blister packs, and foil tops are then collected and recycled through a partnership with TerraCycle. The One by One program is approaching the 3 million mark in number of contact lenses recycled—and removed from our country’s waste stream. To read about how one ECP has successfully implemented this program in her practice, click here.

Congratulations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Catholic School for being named one of five winners in this year's Entenmann's Little Bites: I <3 Recycling photo submission sweepstakes, in parternship with TerraCycle, an "innovation waste management company with a mission to eliminate the idea of waste."[gallery link="file" orderby="title"]

A aprendizagem crítica e criativa faz parte do currículo das séries no Colégio Medianeira, formando pessoas conscientes do seu papel na sociedade e de que são capazes de fazer a diferença. Os estudantes dos 5º anos, preocupados com os impactos causados pela sociedade de consumo, propuseram a criação da coleta de esponjas de limpeza usadas. A iniciativa começa dia 23 de agosto e se estende até 30 de novembro.

Over 100,000 pieces of contact lens waste has been diverted from landfill since July 2017 — a milestone the Bausch + Lomb Recycling Programme is celebrating soon after its one-year anniversary in Australia.

A edição latino-americana do Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, realizada em São Paulo, chegou ao fim em 27 de junho, confirmando novamente o sucesso desse grande encontro executivo.