EcoMask Filtering Face Mask

When you’re done using EcoMask’s reusable face mask, you can send it back to the brand and it will recycle the mask for you. EcoMask’s face coverings are constructed from post-consumer recycled materials and boast five-layers of filtration. The mask comes in sizes ranging from Extra Small to Extra Large and are available in five colors: Black, Sage, Rose, Royal Blue and Navy Blue.  

Synergy Organic Clothing Adult Face Mask

Synergy Organic Clothing’s face masks are made from three layers of GOTS certified organic cotton and feature adjustable ear loops. Masks come in packs of two and are sold in kids and adult sizes. Adult masks are available with screen-printed designs like moons and stars, and some are constructed from deadstock — unsold items — so their exact colors and patterns vary.  

Taco Bell is collaborating with international recycling leader TerraCycle to give its sauce packets a second life that doesn't involve a landfill. According to Taco Bell, fans know that the restaurant chain has a mild obsession with its hot sauce packets, with 8.2 billion sauce packets used in the U.S. each year. Taco Bell is the first quick service restaurant brand to partner with TerraCycle to tackle recycling flexible film packets. The companies will announce details of a national U.S. recycling pilot program later this year, Taco Bell said. According to Taco Bell, customer participation will be easy and will involve free shipping. TerraCycle is known for collecting traditionally non-recyclable materials, cleaning them, then melting and remolding them into hard plastic that can be used to make new recycled products. "In the food industry today, there is no widely available solution for recycling the flexible film packets that are so commonly used for condiments," Liz Matthews, Taco Bell's Global Chief Food Innovation Officer, said. "So, we're thrilled to leverage the expertise of TerraCycle to recycle our iconic sauce packet packaging in a way that's as bold and innovative as our menu." The pilot launch of the program slated to take place later this year, and its results will determine how to move forward, including potential program expansion. "Now more than ever, consumers don't want to sacrifice the planet no matter how delicious the meal," TerraCycle CEO and Founder, Tom Szaky, said. "Together, Taco Bell and TerraCycle will push the quick service industry by finally finding a way to recycle this type of product. This effort takes us one step closer to keeping packets out of landfills and our mission of 'Eliminating the Idea of Waste.'

It probably won’t surprise you, a runner, a definite wearer of shoes, to learn that the shoe industry is massive (producing 24.2 billion pairs a year, massive). Also unsurprising is that with its size comes a monster amount of waste as consumers continue to buy and ditch pair after pair. The life cycle (from material processing, manufacturing, logistics, and eventual waste) is estimated to create 30 pounds of carbon emissions for each pair of running shoes. RELATED: Running Shoes are Part of an Environmental Crisis. Is Change Coming? Running brands aren’t oblivious to the problem and seem to grasp that runners are caring more and more about the environment, but aren’t willing to compromise on the quality of their footwear. In fact, that’s where a lot of the dissonance comes into play. To truly reduce the carbon footprint of the sneaker industry, runners need to one day rely on fewer, yet more durable shoes. But no shoe brand wants us to buy fewer shoes. Which means, it’s up to them to find another way. And this April, just in time for Earth Day, many brands are launching new (or beefing up old) footwear recycling and donating initiatives. On’s Cyclon shoe is sold on a subscription basis, where consumers return and recycle the shoe and receive a new pair every five months or so. Photo: Courtesy On Running

Here Are 6 Brands That Will Recycle Your Kicks (And Socks)

Currently, 85 percent of textiles are not recycled, with the average person throwing away 70 pounds of clothing and other textiles annually. In general, recycling shoes is a complex process and depending on the materials in the shoe it might not be possible. “Footwear is difficult to recycle because most shoes are made using multiple, mixed materials which are often stitched or glued together,” says Shaye DiPasquale a publicist for the recycler TerraCycle. “There is not a lot of physical recycling of footwear that goes on,” says Eric Stubin, president of Trans-Americas Textile Recycling. The majority of ‘recycled’ shoes and clothes are shipped places to be reused. Stubin’s company processes about 10 million pounds of post-consumer textile waste from clothing, shoes, and accessories every year. Take polyurethane foam, a material researchers from Northwestern University only recently figured out how to upcycle. “Polyurethane foam waste has historically been landfilled and burned or down-cycled for use in carpeting,” said William Dichtel, who co-led the research. “Our latest work effectively removes air from polyurethane foams and remolds them into any shape. This could pave the way for industry to begin recycling polyurethane foam waste for many relevant applications.” Polyurethane, which is sometimes used in the midsole of shoes does not melt even in extreme heat. Previously, it could only be shredded or compressed in ways that make the material not durable enough for other uses. In general, when clothing is recycled it tends to go to one of these four different end destinations:

1. Reused and repurposed as secondhand clothing (45%)
2. Recycled and converted into items like reclaimed wiping rags for industrial and residential use (30%)
3. Recycled into post-consumer fiber for home insulation, carpet padding, and raw material for the automotive industry (20%)
4. Landfills (5%)

Perhaps the most notable and lauded shoe recycling program is Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe, which is available at select Nike stores. Through the program any brand of athletic shoe is collected to be turned into a Nike Grind product—tracks, courts, walkways, and playground floors made from ground sneakers. Stubin considers the Nike Grind program to be the most “robust and viable program for footwear.” Earlier this month, the sandal company Teva announced its partnership with TerraCycle through a program it’s calling TevaForever. For no additional cost, customers who sign up receive a pre-paid shipping label to send their worn sandals to TerraCycle. Their goal is to also turn the used sandals into running tracks, playgrounds, and more. TerraCycle‘s footwear Zero Waste Box is an option that anyone can order and fill with shoes to be recycled. According to DiPasquale the shoes will either be manually or mechanically separated into fabrics, metals, fibers, organics, and plastics. The fabrics are reused, upcycled, or recycled. The metals are smelted for reuse elsewhere. Wood or paper fibers are recycled or composted. And the plastics are melted down and turned into pellets, flakes, or other usable formats to be molded into new products or packaging. But what if you could buy a shoe with a promise that it will be recycled, rather than looking for a solution on the back end? On, the Swiss shoe company has recently launched its Cyclon shoe subscription which promises to be a closed-loop system. For a fee of $29.99 per month you are delivered the shoes, made of castor beans. When the shoes reach the end of their life, you let On know and they will send you a new pair along with everything you need to ship the old pair back to be recycled into new products. Because of the concept, On was awarded the 2021 ISPO Product of the Year as well as a Sustainability Achievement award. And on Earth Day, Salomon will begin selling its Index.01 shoe in the U.S., which is already available in Europe. Like On’s concept, it promises to be a circular life-cycle shoe. As long as consumers send it back, partners of Salomon will recycle the TPU and polyester into raw materials for use in other products. In Europe specifically, the TPU will be recycled into Salomon ski boots. What about socks? An oft-forgotten item that is more than likely to end up in the landfill. Smartwool has just announced its new partnership with Material Return starting April 21. Like Nike Grind, this program involves collecting old socks (can be any brand or material, but must be clean) to be ground up and used in other products. This is your chance to get rid of those lonely single socks that, let’s be honest, won’t ever find their match. Find a donation center here.

4 Other Ways to Donate or Recycle Your Shoes

Donating your shoes so someone else can get use out of them is probably the best thing you can do with that old pair. Stubin’s biggest piece of advice when donating your shoes: Don’t judge your shoes too harshly. “A good pair of shoes, even if a runner deems them no longer useful, can likely find a second life,” he says. Even if the charity you donate to can’t re-sell the shoes to a consumer, they can still sell it to a recycler. “So if a Goodwill sells clothing to Trans-Americas, we pay them for that material. There’s a market price for that material,” says Stubin. Programs like One World Running and Soles4Souls (a popular choice among running stores) collect and distribute shoes and other clothing to people who need them. To date the Soles4Souls program has found second use for over 56 million pairs of shoes. Find a donation center near you here. Soles4Souls partners with a lot of other high profile donation programs. The North Face’s Clothes the Loop program, for example, will send your shoes to that recycling leader. [Editor’s Note: You can also join our Soles4Souls shoe drive! Get all the details here and help us put your old sneakers to good use.] Also announced this month, Nike will soon start accepting lightly worn, good condition shoes into its refurbished program for resale in 15 authorized stores. You can also check with your local running store to see if they offer any sort of similar takeback program. Extending the life of a garment by one year can reduce its carbon footprint by 25 percent, according to the Thredup fashion footprint calculator. “So footwear that lives on and finds a second life for two to three years, conceivably reduces the carbon,” says Stubin. Recycling vs. trashing shoes is only a small fraction of the problem. Most of the carbon emissions related to running shoes happens in the manufacturing process. At the end of the day, the best thing that can be done is to buy less and make the products we do own last longer. But, as with every environmentally charged movement, we have to start somewhere and demand forward progress and innovation, while doing our part as individuals.

New York (CNN Business)Taco Bell's plastic sauce packets have a short life. After all, what else are you supposed to do with them after they're squeezed to death?

That's soon changing: The fast food chain is partnering with recycling company TerraCycle to give its packets a "spicier second life that doesn't involve a landfill," Taco Bell said in a press release.

Taco Bell said that more than 8 billion sauce packets are used every year in the United States, a massive number that's potentially environmentally damaging. About 710 million metric tons of plastic will pollute the environment by 2040 if action isn't taken, according to a recent study published in "Science."

Specific details of how the program will work weren't released. However, Taco Bell did reveal that the recycling pilot program will launch later this year and that participation will be simple and involve free shipping. Its ultimate goal is for the discarded sauce packets have an "exciting future as something totally new."

Taco Bell has emerged as an unlikely player in the climate change crusade. The fast-food chain announced Monday that it has partnered with TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based business that specializes in recycling hard-to-recycle materials, in an effort to move beyond its single-use hot sauce packets.

While the condiment packets aren’t traditionally recyclable, TerraCycle intends to give them a second life by creating “flexible film packets” that can be recycled instead of getting sent directly to a landfill. A pilot program with the recyclable packets is slated to launch later this year.

According to a press release, though this change might seem small, it has the potential to make a big impact on the environment. Believe it or not, Taco Bell goes through 8.2 billion sauce packets in the U.S. alone each year, so transforming these packets into something that can finally be recycled is a pretty big deal because it helps the chain generate far less waste.

“In the food industry today, there is no widely available solution for recycling the flexible film packets that are so commonly used for condiments,” Liz Matthews, Taco Bell’s Global Chief Food Innovation Officer, said in a statement. “So, we’re thrilled to leverage the expertise of TerraCycle to recycle our iconic sauce packet packaging in a way that’s as bold and innovative as our menu.”

Though Taco Bell didn’t explain all the details of how this recycling program might work, the chain promised “easy” customer participation that would include free shipping, hinting that Taco Bell eaters could recycle packets from home that they accumulate via drive-thru and take-out orders.

As for TerraCycle’s role? The company plans to clean the used sauce packets and then melt them down so they can be remolded into hard plastic that can be used to make “new recycled products.”

“Now more than ever, consumers don’t want to sacrifice the planet no matter how delicious the meal,” TerraCycle CEO and founder Tom Szaky explained. “Together, Taco Bell and TerraCycle will push the quick service industry by finally finding a way to recycle this type of product. This effort takes us one step closer to keeping packets out of landfills and our mission of ‘Eliminating the Idea of Waste.’”

Additionally, the ability to recycle sauce packets is very important in achieving Taco Bell’s goal of “making all consumer-facing packaging recyclable, compostable, or reusable by 2025” in its eateries around the world. The results of this pilot recycling program are expected to help Taco Bell determine the best, most environmentally friendly answers moving forward, and if the pilot program goes well, it may lead to an expansion.

As part of its commitment to a greener coffee footprint, F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc., makers of Don Francisco's Coffee and Café La Llave espresso, has expanded its recycling program with international recycling company TerraCycle to include coffee bags. Last year, the company partnered with TerraCycle as part of a zero-waste-to-landfill initiative aimed at providing consumers a free and easy way to recycle Don Francisco's and Café La Llave coffee pods and espresso capsules. To date, that program has kept over 500,000 coffee pods and capsules out of landfills, and more than $10,000 has been raised for charities. "At F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc. we embrace our responsibility for environmental stewardship so that we can continue to provide high quality products to consumers today and tomorrow," says Lisette Gaviña Lopez, executive marketing director at F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc. "Our company's Direct Impact Initiative is built on the belief that promoting sustainability practices in our business decisions has a direct impact on the lives our coffee touches. But our business and community initiatives aren't enough on their own; the consumer is a critical part of this process, and our partnership with TerraCycle empowers them to participate in these efforts." Through the Coffee Bag and Pod Recycling Program, consumers can recycle packaging from two F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc. brands — Don Francisco's Coffee and Café La Llave espresso, which include:

• Don Francisco's Single Serve Coffee Pods
• Don Francisco's Espresso Capsules
• Don Francisco's Whole Bean and Ground coffee Bags
• Café La Llave Espresso Style Single Serve Coffee Pods
• Café La Llave Espresso Capsules

The global coffee capsule market is estimated to reach over $14 million by 2027, According to a recent study on the coffee capsule market, with 64% of American adults consuming coffee every day — totaling about 400 million cups daily. With more consumers wanting quick and convenient brewing methods, single-serve coffee pods and espresso capsules have grown in popularity. "At TerraCycle, we understand American's love affair with a great cup of coffee – we share the sentiment," says Tom Szaky, TerraCycle founder and CEO. "Through the Coffee Bag and Pod Recycling Program, coffee connoisseurs can enjoy their favorite pick-me-up and reduce waste, all without sacrificing the enjoyment of their favorite brew." Consumers can recycle bags and pods in four steps. Participants can register online for the Coffee Bag and Pod Recycling Program at, collect used bags and pods, print prepaid shipping labels and mail in eligible items directly to TerraCycle for recycling. Once received, the coffee pods, capsule packaging and coffee bags are cleaned and separated by material type, melted and remolded to make new recycled products, while the residual coffee is sent to an industrial composting facility. The Coffee Bag and Pod Recycling Program also gives participants the opportunity to donate to select charitable institutions based on points earned for recycling. In addition to taking advantage of its recycling program, F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc. encourages consumers to find new ways to reduce, reuse and recycle all coffee products. Cups, capsules, bags, cans and coffee grounds can also be upcycled in a variety of ways. Used coffee grounds can be reused to create homemade body scrubs and even added to the soil on flowerbeds. "In fact, now that springtime is here, our cans of Don Francisco's Coffee can be repurposed to make pots for plants. And, because the cans are made of steel, they can also be recycled through most municipal curbside recycling programs," says Lopez. In addition, F. Gaviña & Sons, Inc. also roasts coffees that are certified to Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade USA and USDA Organic standards, and roasts all its coffee in the company's zero waste-to-landfill plant in Vernon, California. For more information, visit www.donfranciscos.com. To sign up and join the free recycling program, visit www.terracycle.com.

When you look into how recycling management works, it’s a little like finding out Santa Claus doesn’t exist. The illusion shatters and along with it your belief in everything you once thought good and pure in the world. In a way, the road to landfills is paved with good intentions. We Canadians, for example, are notorious for “wish-cycling,” throwing items in the blue bin in the hopes that someone, somewhere will be inspired to recycle them. It doesn’t work like that. Instead, the non-accepted items — chip bags, pizza boxes, toothpaste tubes — only increase the likelihood of actual recyclables getting rejected because the lot is deemed contaminated. To be fair, though, nearly everything is recyclable in theory — even cigarette butts and dirty diapers. But in terms of what actually gets recycled, it all comes down to economics. “Recyclers want things they can recycle at a profit,” says Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, a company that aims to recycle materials that usually aren’t. The things that generate profit tend to be large objects made from a single material. And if that’s plastic, it’s usually clear PET (polyethylene terephthalate or type 1 plastic) or white HDPE (high-density polyethylene or type 2). In other words, it’s everything most beauty packaging is not. Take a look at your medicine cabinet. Chances are a lot of your personal care products fit in your palm and will thus likely get missed by sorting machines and thrown in the trash (it’s why samples and minis have been called the beauty industry’s dark secret). They’re probably also made of mixed materials (a plastic, rubber and metal razor; a metal spring in a plastic pump) and, if plastic, neither clear nor white. That last part is important as coloured plastic has a smaller chance of being recycled because of its lower resale value. (The same goes for glass. If it’s amber or green, Szaky says it probably won’t get recycled.) That’s because you can’t take colour out, only add to it, which makes it less attractive to companies. “Think of kids mixing paint,” he says. “It always ends up brown and you can’t unbrown the brown.” In 2018, the U.S. alone produced 7.9 billion units of plastic for beauty and personal care products, according to Euromonitor International. If we transpose that to a Canadian scale — considering Canadians have similar purchasing habits — “we can estimate that Canada produces 909 million plastic packaging units in a year,” says Laura Yates, plastic campaigner for Greenpeace. Out of that, about 23 per cent is diverted for recycling by consumers, but then a third of that is lost in the sorting and recycling process. Bottom line: In Canada, roughly 773 million plastic beauty or personal care containers end up in landfills every year. So does that mean brands are lying when they emboss a three-arrow triangle on the bottom of, say, a dark travel-sized plastic bottle? No, not technically. That bottle really is recyclable. The issue is similar to consumers’ wish-cycling tendencies: We’re betting our salvation on a system that’s out to make money, not fix the world’s waste problem. When Ericka Rodriguez first started her makeup line, Axiology, in Bend, Oregon, she chose to house her lipsticks in aluminum tubes. “We thought, ‘This is great because aluminum can be recycled over and over again,’” she says. But the part of the tube that held the bullet was made of plastic, which meant that in cities that didn’t accept mixed-material items (guidelines vary a lot from place to place), the whole tube was being discarded. “We felt like we were being dishonest because we were like, ‘It’s recyclable,’ and then some people would be like, ‘It’s not, though, because there’s also plastic.’” It’s not that those aluminum tubes can’t be recycled, it’s that separating the components isn’t considered “worth it.” It gets worse. For a while now, biodegradable plastics have been touted as the solution. You’ve probably used compostable cutlery from that place you got a grain bowl from once and thought, “Wow, this is the future” and went on crunching your quinoa with a clear conscience. The problem is: Composters don’t want compostable packaging. A year ago, Tesco, the biggest retailer in the U.K., banned compostable packaging from its shelves. It did that after it learned composters weren’t actually composting these biodegradable plastics, they were burning them. “Everyone was shocked and asked, “Why? Isn’t it really compostable?”’ says Szaky. “They said, “It is, but it costs us more to process it and deal with it so why would we bother doing it? We’re not morally obligated to do it, we’re not legally obligated. We’re a for-profit business.” Before you go chucking your game of Monopoly in the trash (recycling bin? Who the hell knows anymore?), know that capitalism isn’t the only variable at play. Australia, as part of its first-ever National Plastics Plan, announced last month that it would be banning bioplastics as research has shown that, environmentally, it’s not much better than the conventional kind. “Biodegradable plastics promise a plastic that breaks down into natural components when it’s no longer needed for its original purpose,” explains Jackie Gilbert Bauer, head of product development for hair care brand Hairstory. “The idea that plastic literally disappears once in the ocean or littered on land or in landfills is nice, but it’s not actually possible. Nothing disappears completely.” That’s why Greenpeace does not currently recommend switching to other types of disposable packaging like bioplastics, paper or even 100 per cent recyclable packaging. “Although these often feel like an environmentally better choice than plastic, they are false solutions that risk aggravating current environmental crises, don’t question current disposable culture, and divert attention from the real solutions that should favour reuse,” says Yates. Even TerraCycle, a company built on recycling, acknowledges recycling isn’t the solution. “You really can’t recycle your way out of the place we’re in today,” says Annika Greve, director, business development for North America at Loop, a new TerraCycle initiative launched in Ontario earlier this year. Don’t get her wrong, recycling is “necessary and critical,” she says. For example, TerraCycle and Nordstrom just partnered on BeautyCycle, a program aiming to recycle 100 tons of beauty packaging by 2025 (you can bring any beauty empty to a Nordstrom store to have it recycled). But still, she says, recycling is “a Band-Aid on the much larger issue.” That’s where Loop comes in. It sort of works like an old-school milkman, collecting reusable bottles, cleaning them up and then refilling them. Loop assists companies in transitioning to durable, refillable containers and teams up with retailers such as Loblaws in Canada, so that consumers can buy participating products and drop off empties in a convenient location. Examples of beauty partners in Canada include indie brands like Oneka and Meow Meow Tweet, as well as REN, the first premium beauty brand to sign up. Arnaud Meysselle, REN’s CEO, doesn’t sugar-coat it: Eliminating waste is hard. “There are a lot of hurdles to overcome,” he says of the brand’s pledge to become waste-free by end of year. “There’s a financial impact, which we swallowed — additional costs are not added to the end product — because we are the sinner, so why would we ask people to pay for our sins?” Unfortunately, not every brand is in a position to absorb the costs linked to greener packaging. “It’s really hard for indie brands, the smaller brands, because a lot of these things come with a 10 or 50 thousand minimum order,” says Sheri L. Koetting, founder of MSLK, an agency that guides beauty brands at all stages of development. “So, it’s much easier for the big companies to make these moves. They have the volume. They could do whatever they want.” Ericka Rodriguez ran into this exact problem when she was sourcing refillable lip crayon tubes. “The quotes we were getting to make these were astronomical,” she says. “The way it works is there’s only so many beauty manufacturers out there. They’re mostly in China and they all already work for the big beauty brands. Since these big beauty brands haven’t really invested in, for example, a refillable crayon tube, we’re having to do it and it can be out of reach.” Luckily, the shift is starting. Last year, P&G brands Pantene, Head & Shoulders and Herbal Essences announced they’d be launching refillable shampoos and conditioners. In January, Dove debuted a refillable deodorant. Unfortunately, these products aren’t available in Canada yet. You can, however, shop refills from L’Occitane, Tata Harper, Hairstory and Kiehl’s, to name just a few. “By using 1-litre refill pouches, customers use on average 80 per cent less plastic compared to the same amount of formula across four 250-ml bottles,” says Leonardo Chavez, global brand president for Kiehl’s. “Less plastic,” as in most pouches are still made of plastic, which Koetting says can be viewed as “not that eco-friendly.” “But the amount of plastic that goes into that pouch is so much more minimal and doesn’t take a lot of energy to make,” she says. Because it’s lighter and can ship flat, its transport also generates fewer carbon emissions. We have a tendency to vilify materials, says Szaky, which has certainly been the case with plastic in recent years. “Plastics can do amazing things that nothing else can do. Our computers are made from plastic, our eyeglasses are made from plastic. It’s also how the materials are used that determines whether they’re benevolent or not.” Perhaps the most benevolent material is no material at all. British brand Lush has been a leader in that space with its packageless hair care and skin care bars. Rodriguez also decided to take that route with her multi-purpose balms — she did away with the tubes and instead wrapped the bullets in recycled paper — when she couldn’t find a manufacturer that could provide a packaging solution she was comfortable with.   As consumers, supporting brands that offer these kinds of package-free or refill products — or letting the ones that don’t know that we want better options — can make a world of difference. “The number 1 thing that will make industry change is purchasing habits — that speaks volumes,” Greve says. But the most effective purchasing habit of all? Buying way less. “The only answer is lowering consumption,” Szaky says matter of factly. And this is where the illusion shatters even further: “No matter how vegan or fair-trade that thing that you bought is, if you didn’t buy it, that land that had to farm it could have been a forest.” Like Santa, Szaky confirms, “there’s no such thing as good consumption.”