Imagine: Cigarette butts, whether on the street or in an ashtray, can now be turned into something useful. They could even help organizations do some modest fundraising.
Yes, butt recycling has arrived in Canada, thanks to a program launched mid-May by an innovative company called TerraCycle Canada (
terracycle.ca).
What will those butts become? Skids or pallets made from the plastic filters, according to TerraCycle. The organic leftovers — the tobacco and paper — will be composted.
Imagine: Cigarette butts, whether on the street or in an ashtray, can now be turned into something useful. They could even help organizations do some modest fundraising.
Yes, butt recycling has arrived in Canada, thanks to a program launched mid-May by an innovative company called TerraCycle Canada (
terracycle.ca).
What will those butts become? Skids or pallets made from the plastic filters, according to TerraCycle. The organic leftovers — the tobacco and paper — will be composted.
The pen is a marvellous invention, but when it has done its job it still ends up in the garbage. One more non-recyclable item journeys to the landfill. In the US, 1.6 billion meet that fate each year.
Recycling pens poses big problems. Even though a good portion of a pen is plastic, it is usually several different kinds of plastic, usually contaminated with a bit of metal or an ink core or some other materials.
Dear Parents,
Our TerraCycle brigade has been going well! Instead of going into the landfill, these hard-to-recycle items are being turned them into affordable green products! For more information about the TerraCycle program and products, visit
www.TerraCycle.net. Thank you, everyone, for your collection efforts!
Noetix Corp., a world-class provider of business intelligence (BI) software and services for enterprise applications, today announced it has been selected for King County’s annual list of
Best Workplaces for Recycling and Waste Reduction for the third consecutive year.
King County’s Solid Waste Division initiated the list five years ago to recognize businesses for strong internal recycling programs and for their commitment to making recycling a priority for their companies. In 2011, 89 businesses, including restaurants, manufacturers, city governments, and a wide variety of others, demonstrated fulfillment of the listing’s criteria and provided individual stories about how successes were achieved. “Noetix and the other businesses on our list have put exceptional recycling programs into place and shown commitment to reducing the amount of waste their company sends to the landfill,” said Karen May, project manager, Recycling and Environmental Services at King County Solid Waste Division. “Their actions help reduce the impacts of climate change and feed recycled materials back into the economy.”
To qualify as a
Best Workplace for Recycling and Waste Reduction, companies must meet at least 10 criteria from a list of more than 30 good business recycling practices that range from placing recycling bins by every desk to collecting food scraps for composting.
Readers can participate in nationwide recycling programs this month by bringing used pens and flip-flops to area Office Depot and Old Navy locations.
Between April 17 and 23, shoppers can bring in 10 used pens, markers or mechanical pencils to Office Depot and receive a coupon toward new Sanford products (maker of Sharpie, Expo, PaperMate). The used writing instruments will be sent to TerraCycle to be recycled into new office products such as trash cans and desk organizers.
Office Depot has stores in St. Charles and Algonquin.
EAST AMWELL TWP. — Where most people see trash, the township school’s Environmental Club sees cash. That has won $50,000 for the school, the top prize in a TerraCycle-Walmart contest for New Jersey public schools. It did so by blitzing TerraCycle with 52,640 plastic wrappers and containers during the two-and-a-half-month contest.
“You can’t get much greener than this!” exclaimed the club’s adviser, fifth-grade language arts and science teacher Sharon Ernst.
It all started in 2008 with Ernst casting about for a way to raise money for an Environmental Club for fourth- and fifth-graders. She wanted to do something applicable to stewardship, which ruled out fundraisers such as bake sales. She considered selling seeds, then a parent mentioned TerraCycle, which pays nonprofit groups that send it hard-to-recycle items for reuse or recycling.
Since then, the club has gathered, for instance, more than 30,000 empty Capri Sun containers. The money was spent on plants that allow Ernst to raise Monarch butterflies. She uses the pollinators in her lessons on ecosystems.
