GU Energy Labs releases a new packaging sleeve for GU Energy Chews. This convenient sleeve gives athletes a new way to carry a double serving of portable energy that fits easily in a jersey pocket or hydration vest. The new sleeves hold a stack of eight individual Energy Chews that each deliver 20 calories. Created for daily training and competition, GU Energy Chews help sustain the energy demands of long-duration activities. Now easier to open,eat on the go, and share with friends, GU Energy Chews contain sodium to replenish electrolytes, complex and simple carbohydrates for fast and lasting energy, and branched-chain amino acids to help prevent mental fatigue and reduce muscle damage. GU Energy Labs aims to create portable, convenient, and effective ways to deliver the functional nutrients that are essential to improved athletic performance. The new double-serving sleeve responds to the needs of discerning athletes who asked for a compact way to carry more fuel.  GU Energy Labs will continue to offer Energy Chews in single-serving pouches for athletes that prefer the smaller serving size. Flavors include strawberry, blueberry pomegranate, orange, and watermelon. Like all GU Energy Labs packaging, the new Energy Chews sleeves can be recycled with Terracycle.

The following Q&A is an edited excerpt from the Bard MBA’s Nov. 18 Sustainable Business Fridays podcast, which brings Bard MBA in Sustainability students together with leaders in business, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, has been working to solve the question: What is garbage? TerraCycle’s premise is that anything can be recycled — but some items pose a challenge. There is a straightforward business case for commonly recycled items such as glass, metal and plastic, but how about cigarette butts, paint or diapers? TerraCycle’s imaginative approach has taken the company from being called the "coolest little start-up in America" to appearing in three seasons of the reality TV show "Human Resources" to operating in more than 20 countries. Last month, Alistair Hall from Bard’s MBA in Sustainability spoke with Szaky to dig into the question, "Why does garbage really exist?" Alistair Hall: What was the inspiration for Terracycle? Tom Szaky: I started TerraCycle out of my dorm room with a passion for solving the critical issue of waste. We first started looking at it by making products out of waste and we became quite successful. Over a few year period, we grew into a $6 million business with clients such as Walmart, Target and Home Depot selling products like worm poop fertilizer in a reused soda bottle. It was quite exciting. Early in our history, we realized that if we focused on the finished product as the outcome, or the hero, of the business concept, then we had to pick the very best waste to make the very best product. We would never deal with garbage that is not optimal or clean, like cigarette butts, dirty diapers or chewing gum — all of which, by the way, we recycle and collect today. About five years into our business, we shifted our model to focus on garbage as the hero, and the solution is what can we make it into. Now we’re able to deal with hundreds of different waste streams. We’ve invented a recycling solution for everything from chewing gum to plastic gloves and have grown quite a bit in the process. Today, TerraCycle operates in 24 countries around the world, including China, Japan, countries in Western Europe, Latin America, North America and so on. Hall: How do you come up with solutions to recycle things like chewing gum? Szaky: First and foremost, garbage doesn't exist in the natural kingdom because the output of every organism is the input of another organism. There are no useless outputs. To go one step deeper, it’s not like one super organism eats every other organism’s outputs. Instead, there are specific outputs to specific organisms. One organism eats a leaf that falls off a tree; a different organism eats the carbon and makes it into oxygen. I mention that metaphor because landfills and incinerators today are like superorganisms that are created to eat everything in the garbage. Every type of garbage is different. It has a different heartbeat, like a different animal. To solve the waste stream, we need to put three things together that may be very different, waste stream by waste stream.

1. Collect it. To get waste from the point of origin to our warehouses, we have to account for the collection vehicles, health, safety, cost and then of course for whether people will actually even do it.
2. Process it. We have to process the waste in a circular way, either through upcycling, recycling or reuse. I’ll give some more color on that in a moment.
3. Finally, we need to weave a business model around it that makes sense, which is important because TerraCycle focuses on recycling only those things that are not economically profitable to recycle.

You can do five things with garbage. Going from the worst to the best options: 5) You can landfill it; 4) burn it for energy; 3) reuse it (circular solutions are very popular in clothing, electronics, textiles and items that are refurbished for their originally intended use); 2) upcycling, which has a wide range but low volume, like sewing juice pouches into backpacks; and 1) technical recycling. The vast majority of our volume goes through our science department, where it’s technically recycled: taking apart and reconstituting the materials into new aluminum, new plastic or composting organics. Szaky: Absolutely. Retailers are interested in foot traffic, but a city isn’t. A city’s interested in litter reduction to boost tourism, while a brand may be interested in market share increase.  Hall: Is there a piece of garbage or a product that you are most proud of figuring out how to recycle or upgrade? Szaky: I love the crazy stuff because it makes the mind work. In March, we’ll be launching the first national chewing gum recycling program in the world in Mexico. Later next year, we’ll be launching the world’s first city-wide diaper recycling program in Holland. A few years ago, we launched cigarette recycling across 11 countries nationally. The sort of more gross ones really get me, because if you can solve those, you can solve just about anything.  Hall: What can chewing gum be turned into? Szaky: Chewing gum is a plastic polymer. It’s like a rubber and it can be made into 35 percent of any sort of plastic product. Think of it as 35 percent chewing gum and 65 percent gum packaging or other plastics. Hall: Where will TerraCycle go next? Szaky: We’re opening in China next month. We just set up our office in Shanghai, and that’s a big new area for us. Japan was a big success. We opened there a few years ago and so now we’re really looking to expand more into the Asian marketplace. And so after China, South Korea. We’ll go live as well in Taiwan, Singapore, India — those are the key areas we’re focused on, and then from there who knows what will be next? Really, anywhere in the world where there’s interest in solving waste, we try to be there.  Hall: When you launch into these markets, are there specific products you have in mind for certain parts of the waste stream you are looking to tackle? Szaky: It’s opportunistic. It’s where there’s interest. So in China, we’re targeting oral care recycling and cosmetic recycling, but it could be anything. It’s truly where there’s opportunity and where there’s interest to fund solutions. 

Los desechos electrónicos son actualmente el flujo de residuos sólidos de más rápido crecimiento, aumentando dos a tres veces más rápido que otros flujos de desechos.

Nueva Zelanda, Chile, Turquía y México son los países que menos reciclan sus desechos urbanos, refieren cifras de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE) citadas en un artículo del Foro Económico Mundial (WEF por sus siglas en inglés). Los mismos datos indican que Alemania es la nación que más recicla al hacerlo con el 65 por ciento de sus residuos. En segundo lugar se ubica Corea del Sur con un porcentaje de reciclado del 59 por ciento, seguida de Eslovenia con un 58 por ciento. En contraparte, Nueva Zelanda recicla el 0 por ciento de sus residuos, seguido de Chile y Turquía con 1 por ciento y México con un 5 por ciento. Tom Szaky, fundador de TerraCycle, un empresa que reutiliza residuos post-consumo difíciles de reciclar como las colillas de cigarrillos usadas, explica en el artículo difundido por el WEF que a medida que los flujos de desechos generados por humanos continúan evolucionando en diversidad y volumen, "la comunidad global enfrenta el desafío creciente de desarrollar soluciones viables de reciclaje y gestión de residuos a un ritmo comparable". Menciona que los desechos electrónicos son actualmente el flujo de residuos sólidos de más rápido crecimiento, aumentando dos a tres veces más rápido que otros flujos de desechos. Asimismo indica que la actividad industrial, solamente en Estados Unidos, genera 7.6 miles de millones de toneladas de desechos sólidos al año, lo que equivale a 3000 por ciento del total de desechos municipales generados por la sociedad estadounidense en el mismo tiempo. Por ello alerta que a medida que el mundo entra en la Cuarta Revolución Industrial, "las consecuencias ecológicas de no priorizar la gestión sostenible de los recursos son graves". Szaky reconoce que es improbable que los fabricantes, los minoristas o los consumidores se responsabilicen voluntariamente de la vida útil final de sus residuos a menos que estén obligados a soportar el costo de las soluciones para los productos y envases que producen, venden o consumen. Menciona que aunque los gobiernos de todo el mundo están aplicando esquemas de responsabilidad del productor, hay limitaciones evidentes sobre lo que pueden o harán de manera realista, por lo cual señala que el impulso recae en el sector privado. Szaky, cuya empresa reutiliza colillas de cigarrillos, bolígrafos, filtros de agua, cepillos de dientes usados y tubos de cepillo de diente, dice que el reciclaje de casi todo lo que usamos ya es posible y además expone que los consumidores, con los compromisos sociales y políticos adecuados, pueden impulsar la demanda de soluciones integrales de reciclaje en múltiples niveles. “La escala del problema mundial de los residuos exige que todos en el ciclo de consumo actúen juntos para trabajar hacia soluciones regenerativas y circulares que colman la brecha con el cero desperdicio”, plantea.  

Quanto aos resíduos de descarte difícil, como produtos de beleza e materiais de escritório, o trabalho é feito juntamente com a Terracycle, uma multinacional do ramo que recebe o material enviado pelos PEV’s.

Na última sexta-feira (14), a Seção Socioambiental do TRF5 enviou a primeira remessa de esponjas para a empresa TerraCycle. Foi coletado 1,1kg do material, o que equivale a 130 esponjas..

Hun nævner "Brug Låget"-samarbejdet mellem Arla, TerraCycle og Aage Vestergaard Larsen A/S, der netop er afsluttet efter en treårig periode, som et godt eksempel på genanvendelse.

REDLANDS IndigiScapes is doing its bit to save the planet by going zero-waste with TerraCycle, a recycling group that deals with hard-to-recycle waste. It has installed a TerraCycle media storage waste box, a contraption that recycles media storage equipment like old CDs, memory sticks and cassette tapes that can’t otherwise be dealt with through regular recycling systems. IndigiScapes houses a zero waste box in its resource recovery station, a trolley to be used around the centre during events and off-site as required. The waste box accepts various waste streams from hairnets to mail room supplies. Once the box is full, it is returned to TerraCycle for recycling using the pre-affixed shipping label. TerraCycle general manager Jean Bailliard said it was encouraging to see local schools, businesses and community organisations getting involved. TerraCycle transforms the collected waste into recycled materials or reuses the waste for other purposes like park benches, watering cans and even playgrounds.

In a bid to decrease the amount of coffee capsules going into landfill, locals are encourage to join the NESCAFE Dolce Gusto Recycling Program. Established in 2014 by the NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto team and recycling pioneers TerraCycle, the program turns used coffee, milk, tea and chocolate capsules into recycled materials that can be transformed into planter boxes, playground equipment and park benches. Spokesperson Gemma Kaczerepa says the donation process is simple. "It's really easy, you just need to head to our website which is terracycle.com.au, sign up to the program, collect any old box or bag and then put your used capsules in that bag and then once it's full, you just need to drop it off at your nearest Australia Post with a free shipping label attached which you can also download from our website. Then it all gets sent off for free."

The company is working with TerraCycle.Bausch + Lomb is offering a new recycling program for contact lenses.

Bausch + Lomb has announced the launch of the Bausch + Lomb #ONEbyONE recycling program. The effort encourages consumers to help preserve the environment “by taking ONE action at a time, to ONE day achieve a greener future where even your contact lenses can play a role,” according to a press release. Patients can now recycle their used Biotrue ONEday contact lenses and other Bausch + Lomb contact lenses and blister packs through a free program developed by Bausch + Lomb in partnership with TerraCycle. TerraCycle is described as “a world leader in the collection and repurposing of hard-to-recycle post-consumer waste.” “Bausch + Lomb is not only committed to providing patients with innovative vision care, but to practicing good stewardship within our business practices,” said Guy Guglielmino, head of marketing, Vision Care, Bausch + Lomb. “This includes working closely with companies, such as TerraCycle, who is making progress in the areas of recycling, reusing and reducing waste and energy consumption in hopes to better preserve our environment for future generations.” Bausch + Lomb celebrated the launch of #ONEbyONE with a consumer event on America Recycles Day, Nov. 15, hosted by Biotrue ONEday at the Marshall B. Ketchum University’s Southern California College of Optometry in Anaheim, CA. “We’re proud to partner with a leader in the vision care industry such as Bausch + Lomb to provide consumers an opportunity to take a small step each day in hopes to one day leave a larger positive impact on the earth,” said Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle. “This is the first time we have recycled at a large-scale in this category and we hope the Bausch + Lomb #ONEbyONE program will inspire participation from current and future patients who previously have not had an option to recycle their contact lenses.”