A St. Catharines small business is helping Niagara up its recycling game with the hopes of ultimately enticing people to embrace a more low-waste lifestyle.   Garden City Essentials, a wellness and lifestyle boutique, is collecting packaging from health and beauty-related products to be recycled through TerraCycle.   “I feel like there’s an evolution that has to happen where people become more mindful of what they’re using, what they’re purchasing and I just really want to support that in my business,” said founder Jolene Antle.   “If I’m going to sell products, I also want to be a place where people can take things that aren’t recyclable.”   With waste overflowing in landfills and oceans, negatively impacting animals and contributing to climate change, Antle said it’s important to take responsibility of an issue we all contributed to creating.   “There’s thousands of ways we can all make changes in our daily lives.”   Even if it’s simply refusing single-use plastics or bringing reusable cups or containers to cafés or restaurants, Antle said those seemingly small changes add up to make a meaningful difference.   Four Zero Waste Boxes now sit in the front window of her James Street shop — one a free, Gillette-sponsored box collecting razor blades (of any brand), the other three she is paying for out of pocket to collect the remnants of products related to oral hygiene, beauty, personal care and cosmetics.   “I’d love to see other businesses and different institutions having boxes that relate to their products.”   It’s the smaller products — like razors, plastic tubes and caps, dental floss containers, lipstick tubes, empty makeup pallets and deodorant sticks — that aren’t accepted by some municipalities because they are small or sharp or inconvenient, said Antle. While these items are technically made of recyclable material, they can still end up in oceans or landfills.   The intention isn’t to be the place people put their packaging waste forever, she said, neither is it to judge anybody for their waste. But it was important to her to offer an alternative and hopefully incite a more thoughtful lifestyle approach.   Lifestyle changes don’t have to be instantaneous, they can happen incrementally, she said.   “I think people become more mindful and they will switch to more sustainable options when it’s time for them, when it’s accessible or when they can afford it.”   In the meantime, she said having a place to recycle those trickier items will at least keep them out of landfills.   Collected items are shipped to one of TerraCycle’s warehouses, located in 21 countries around the globe, where they are cleaned and weighed, said Sue Kauffman, the North American public relations manager.   Treatment depends on the type of material, but generally, she said it is shredded and broken down to its core elements then re-melted into pellets.   These pellets are then sold to other manufacturers to make new products like plastic decking, shipping pallets, outdoor furniture, basically any non-food grade plastic products.   “Walk through Home Depot and anything that’s plastic can be made out of this type of plastic material.”   There’s so much plastic material out there and all of it can be recycled, she said, but it often comes down to economics. Some items are just too expensive to recycle.   “Local recycling industries are trying their best, but they don’t collect everything … What we do is we pick up where local recycling facilities leave off.”   The company offers more than 150 different waste streams and both free (product-sponsored) and paid recycling programs.   In the short time since introducing the Zero Waste Boxes to her shop, Antle said she’s already seen a ton of interest and participation.   Yes, it’s a service that’s costing the shop money, but she said it’s completely worth it.   “If I can reduce my waste but also help people in my community do it, then why wouldn’t I? It seems like a small price to pay.”   For more information, or to purchase a Zero Waste Box of your own, go to terracycle.com.