TerraCycle have joined with NESCAFE Dolce Gusto to help provide a second life for used NESCAFÉ® Dolce Gusto® capsules through their pod recycling program.

Nespresso has partnered with global recycling and upcycling pioneers TerraCycle to expand its recycling programme.

Jewells Primary school wins first prize in the Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures recycling competition by collecting oral care waste for TerraCycle.

Australia Post has introduced a free mailing satchel collection program with TerraCycle, providing a recycling solution for a product that cannot be dealt with by most councils’ kerbside collection services.

Caloundra Florist has been working with TerraCycle for six months to help recycle used coffee capsules.

Waster has teamed up with TerraCycle to provide recycling solutions for hard to recycling waste utilising their Zero Waste Boxes.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the things you toss into your recycle bin every week? It’s a habit many of us do without even thinking about ever since many communities have adopted curbside recycling programs. But have you ever stopped to think about the impact each item has and exactly what they do with it? Once it’s gone we have no idea about its usefulness or it’s overall impact on the environment. I believe in reducing waste from the outset, but sometimes you can’t avoid it. This is why recycling is so important for our environment. We recycle a lot of containers, boxes, and plastic, especially in our kitchen, but one of our biggest items that I have always wondered if they could even be recycled are dog food bags. Well, it turns out you can. And not only can you recycle a Wellness dog food bag, you can help support your favorite charity when you do. Wellness Recycle Program Wellness is dedicated to long-term sustainability to support our planet. Their Wellness Recycle Program is a partnership with TerraCycle^®. In fact, Wellness is the first US-based pet food company to partner with TerraCycle. How it works: Any person, organization or school can register for free with TerraCycle. Once you are registered, simply enroll in the Wellness Recycle Program. You can recycle any Wellness^® TruFood^®, CORE^®, and Complete Health^® packaging through the program. From there you can request a shipping label to ship your empty pet food packaging to TerraCycle (it’s free). Once received, the packaging is shredded and melted into hard plastic that is then remolded to make new recycled products. This helps eliminate waste and for every shipment over 2 lbs that you send in, you will receive TerraCycle points that can be redeemed for charitable gifts, product bundles or converted to cash that you can donate to a school or non-profit of your choice. Each lb of waste is equal to 100 TerraPoints. How cool is that? Join the Wellness Recycle Program and help eliminate waste while supporting your local school or favorite charity.

E-commerce and online shopping have revolutionized consumer retail. Having long moved beyond the initial desktop websites of yore, online shipping is now enabled by dynamic mobile apps, cross-platform plug-ins and even text message ordering systems, and has forever altered the way consumers interact with products and services. This is especially evidenced around the holidays, when gifting, entertaining and stocking up puts purchases at the year’s high. In the U.S., November and December drive 30% more e-commerce revenue than non-holiday months, and the days from Black Friday through Christmas pull in 50-100% more revenue than shopping days throughout the rest of the year. So it may not be a coincidence that household waste jumps 25% during the holidays.

What’s the Problem with Online Shopping?

For all its innovation, online shopping has created a great increase of cardboard and plastic packaging waste. From the big box e-commerce sites like Amazon to the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) artisan networks like Etsy, items purchased online are habitually over-packaged (as are most products today, for that matter) and single orders are delivered in separate parcels. Excessive packaging is one of the most preventable sources of waste, and most of it ends up in the landfill. There are quite a few things you can do to incorporate sustainability into your online holiday shopping. The first rung on the waste hierarchy (which is shaped a bit like a Christmas tree), is prevention. Cutting out online shopping and preventing waste by either shopping directly with vendors in-person (and bringing your own shopping bag) or making the pledge to celebrate the holiday without buying new things are simple, doable options for prioritizing sustainability this time of year.

Tips for Shopping Sustainably Online

If you absolutely must online shop (and can’t forego making seasonal purchases, for that matter), making thoughtful reuse of product and packaging waste incurred through online shopping may make a real dent in that 25% increase in holiday waste. To offset the packaging included in your online deliveries, wrap your gifts with stylish stuff you already have. According to the CDC, if every American family wrapped just 3 presents in reused materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. Plastic air packs now frequently replace Styrofoam packaging peanuts in the boxes that dwarf the products they contain. Though voluminous, and dangerous if they end up in landfills, these items can be dropped off at packing and shipping stores that otherwise purchase these items for their own packaging service. Call your local shipping store and see if they are interested in your usable plastic packs; just make sure there’s still air in them. Same goes for bubble wrap. If your plastic air packs or bubble wrap sheets have popped, many of these can be recycled wherever plastic shopping bags are accepted. This does not mean through curbside! Most municipal curbside recycling programs do not accept plastic bags of any type (including retail shopping bags). For many of us, the most viable solutions for plastic bag (and plastic delivery packaging) are as simple as a trip to the supermarket. Most cardboard and paper is highly recyclable (all waste is technically recyclable, but we digress), so feeding those materials back into the product system is relatively easy. As for the other types of plastic packaging that accompany online deliveries and products themselves, there are options available.

Become a more Engaged Consumer

TerraCycle’s Plastic Packaging Zero Waste Bag is a recycling solution for common, traditionally non-recyclable flexible or rigid plastic packaging when municipal recycling options and other initiatives are insufficient. Appropriate to manage waste overflow from online shopping, holiday festivities, or life in general, consumers can fill the bag with mixed items such as Styrofoam peanuts, ingredients packaging, tissue paper packaging, shrink wrap and more. To make online shopping more sustainable at the source, you the consumer can put pressure on companies to reduce their environmental impact and “go green.” Moving away from excessive packaging doesn’t have to undermine convenience or the ability to maintain product integrity. Consumers already have voiced their discontent with the exorbitant amount of packaging waste created by seemingly nonsensical packaging practices. Yet, they continue to demand the convenience of products transported with unsustainable packaging practices. Simple, powerful solutions for reducing packaging waste lie in companies finding more efficient ways to meet consumer demands. But in the meantime, being more mindful of the ways you can reduce your own environmental footprint is important. The more people like you participate in energy-saving waste reduction activities, the closer we’ll be to a sustainable, peaceful Earth.

Em 2012 a Faber-Castell estabeleceu uma parceria com a TerraCycle e lançou um programa de coleta que permite a transformação de instrumentos de escrita em matéria prima reciclada que substitui o material virgem que seria utilizado e evita o descarte de resíduos no meio ambiente.

A CIC Antônio Prado em apoio ao Projeto TerraCycle, esteve presente no Chá da 3ª Idade do Grupo Esperança, em Ipê.