Kimberly-Clark Professional, Roswell, Ga., and TerraCycle, Trenton, N.J., have announced plans to expand the world's first clean room and laboratory garment recycling initiative to include a pilot program for gloves. Since the program's launch in October 2011, participating clean rooms and laboratories have sent in more than 7,000 lbs. of garment waste, including coveralls, hoods, boot covers, hairnets, and masks, to be recycled into plastic products such as plastic lumber, park benches, and picnic tables. Collections are on track to reach more than 350,000 lbs. in coming months, and both companies are actively pursuing additional locations for garment collection. Life Technologies Corp. is piloting a nitrile glove recycling program with Kimberly-Clark Professional, TerraCycle, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, which supplies the gloves and all recycling program materials. Employees at Life Technologies' Pleasanton, Calif., facility started recycling gloves in December 2011 to support the goal of becoming the first of the company's sites to achieve zero waste to landfill. "In 2011, our Pleasanton manufacturing site raised its landfill diversion rate from 37 to 83 percent, and in early 2012 we expect to reach over 90 percent," said Eve Nichelini, glove and garment recycling program manager for Life Technologies.