Summer is still officially here, but for our children back to school is closing in on the horizon! Soon they will be back with their friends, teachers, and school books; lockers will be slamming and they will be racing off to the next class. One of my favorite items from TerraCycle is this sharp, functional messenger bag; it is made from pre-consumer waste from the Doritos X-13D packaging material. The messenger bag comes with an adjustable strap.

The Global Food & Beverage Summit returns to Chicago on July 15-17, 2014 where it will be held at the Chicago Hyatt Regency.  This year the event is rolling out two dynamic learning tracks that offer high quality learning to those in the food & beverage sector—Strategies for Marketing & Brand Differentiation plus Technical Intelligence to Enhance Production & Engineering. Packaging Digest had the opportunity to connect with Albe Zakes, vp of communication, TerraCycle Inc., who will be speaking at the event. His background includes playing an integral role in the transformation of TerraCycle from a small start-up selling liquefied worm poop in reused soda bottles into a successful and highly visible recycling innovator that runs pre- and post-consumer packaging reclamation programs for major manufacturers such as Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, L’Oreal, 3M, Kimberly-Clark, Proctor & Gamble and Newell Rubbermaid. For companies that are looking to increase their triple bottom line, what are some key practice points for developing a successful sustainability program? Zakes: Unfortunately, sustainability and social responsibility programs don't come in a "one-size-fits-all" so any company looking to improve their triple bottom line, must first understand where their issues and opportunities exist. A good way to start this process is review each major step of your supply chain individually. Start with the "low-hanging" fruit, your own offices and employees. For environmental improvement, look to see how you can reduce waste and increase recycling or reuse. Naming an "eco-champion" for the office helps to provide a more defined sense of responsibility. Then look at all the ways you can reduce waste, without affecting productivity. Do you have a double-sided printing policy? Are recycling bins clearly labelled and widely available? Do you provide reusable coffee mugs and dish ware? Consider a small "reward" for those who bike or carpool to work. Then consider gamifying the whole process. Have internal contests about which department/floor/section can reduce, reuse and recycle the most. Have a leader board and watch the competition heat up while helping to reduce your company's eco-impact. Then for social impact there are fun easy ways to get your employees involved and actually increase their positivity and commitment. Consider local volunteer days, bonus time off for running in charity races, setting up clothing, shoe or can food drives in the office. Every little bit helps and most employees will be glad to participate. Then look at your transportation and manufacturing, a trickier place to improve, but with bigger pay off if done correctly. After all, yours is a for-profit business and making sure you keep your costs controlled is vital. Consider renewable energies in your manufacturing or whether alternative transportation is viable, be it electric cars or using simply using freight train versus trucking. Many investments in sustainable energy can become cost-saving measures, but often have very long horizons before that is the case. At TerraCycle, we leased our roofs to a solar company, who then installed solar panels on our factories and offices. We recoup serious energy savings, the solar company sells the left over credits and in 20 years we will own the panels outright. All at no cost to the company! Try to balance a few long-term investments and with a few smaller, easy and less costly to implement ideas. Look at reducing your post-industrial waste as an easy cost saving solutions. More and more companies are providing free or low-cost recycling solution for trim or off-spec materials, reducing your impact and tipping fees. Triple bottom line efforts don't have to detract from the fiscal bottom line. Start with smaller, easy projects like increased recycling options, updating company policies and running intern drives and charity efforts. Then you can get a sense of your stakeholders’ willingness to tackle the bigger issues.   How can companies increase consumer engagement to purchase sustainably and ethically-packaged products? Zakes: Education, education, education. Consumers can't be expected to pay a premium of any size or make a brand-switch simply because they are told your package is more sustainable or ethical. They need to know why the issue you are addressing matters and what eco/social impact the less responsible choice is creating. Further, they need to how why your package is better, not just have faith that you’re telling the truth. Getting that message across is not easy but can be delivered with honest, straight-forward marketing. Bring the issue to life visually through images, infographics and third party endorsements from reputable figures. Use these talking points and images on your package, POP materials, social media and your website. Consumers trust what they see and information from respected authorities. Use these channels to educate and inspire consumers on why the issue matters and why they should make the better choice. Ask for feedback and give your consumers a voice. Today's social media driven world is a 2-way conversation with consumer like never before. Don't just tell your consumer that your package is more responsible; ask them for their help on a journey to a better package. Take pride in the improvements you've already made and ask them for their opinion on how to make it even better. Consumers feel a much stronger affinity to a product they feel they've helped to build or improved and are far more loyal to a company they think is actually interested in their opinion.   How can an organization maximize its impact on the community and ensure its future sustainability? Zakes: The key is combining long-term and short-term goals into a strategy that can have both an immediate and long-lasting affect. Start with smaller ways to engage the local communities around your offices and facilities. This can take the form of the aforementioned charity drives, mentorship programs, local clean-up efforts or donations to local non-profits. While there are some small costs to these efforts they can also create shared value through PR, Social Media and general impact consumer awareness and opinion. Once you've started to develop these relationships with the local community, use the experience to create templates for how these events can make both social impact and help your business, then decide which to continue or make into annual or recurring events. As your view turns towards a longer horizon think about adding to these annual outreach efforts by setting up a local scholarship fund or mounter/fellowship program. Work with the recyclers and waste management companies in your area to understand how you can work together better to reduce waste. Talk with local government to see who you can support their beautification or environmental initiatives. Host a community "town hall" to discuss and understand the impacts—both positive and negative—that your business and others in the area have on the community. While that type of public transparency might seem risky or intimidating at first, you will gain invaluable insight and massive respect from consumers simply for your willingness to listen.   How do you see the sustainable packaging industry evolving? Future trends and innovations? Zakes: Sustainable packaging has a very bright future. Innovation is taking place across the board and has the buy in from all stakeholders from manufacturers to purchasers to consumers to governments. Tactics like designed for re-use are being explored by giants like Coca-Cola. Compostable, bio-based plastics are becoming more affordable and applicable to a wider range of packaging formats. Post-consumer recycling opportunities for packaging falsely labelled "non-recyclable" are booming lead by TerraCycle, Aveda, Crayola and otherwise. Ways to reduce the energy or materials required to manufacturer packaging are blossoming and more and more decreasing the carbon impact of shipping—through lighter weight packaging or items that stack better—is becoming the norm. Packaging will forever be a part of modern consumerism, but the day when packaging is celebrated—not vilified—for its environmental impact grows ever closer. Albe will be presenting on July 16, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. To find out more about the event, please visit http://pdlinks.com/WGJ9Ds. For more information about how to register for the summit and pre-conference workshop, visit www.fbpackaging.comor call 310-445-8535.

"We work with about 40 different kinds of products and packaging," says Lauren Taylor, director of U.S. public relations. "Some of the more interesting ones are cigarette butts we can recycle into industrial uses, such as palettes. We also have a plant caddy that's available at Target that's made from drink pouches." Another cool form of recycling: They've taken some of that money and donated more than $6.6 million to charity.

TerraCycle, an international company that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging is turning our snack bags into eye-catching purses and tote bags that are then sold to the public. TerraCycle repurposes trash into useful stuff, from park benches and toys to flower pots and furniture. The process is called upcycling, not to be confused with downcycling or recycling.

If anyone knows about scaling a green business, it’s Tom Szaky, founder of TerraCycle in Trenton, New Jersay. Szaky launched the company in 2001, with a plant fertilizer made entirely from waste.

Ashley Offenback, a senior and a member of an honors club at Penn State Berks, fund raises for her club through TerraCycle. This website lets you send your waste through different “brigades,” one for each type of recyclables. For instance, the Snack Bag Brigade, the Solo Cup Brigade and the Scotch Tape Brigade each accept the items they’re named after.

"Since their U.S. launch in September 2009, our Frito-Lay sponsored TerraCycle bag brigades have diverted over 23 million of our post-consumer snack bags from landfill. The program expanded into Brazil, Mexico and Israel in 2012, collecting more than 6 million bags in just one year. The program now operates 70 brigades in 22 countries.

“Since their U.S. launch in September 2009, our Frito-Lay sponsored TerraCycle bag brigades have diverted over 23 million of our post-consumer snack bags from landfill. The program expanded into Brazil, Mexico and Israel in 2012, collecting more than 6 million bags in just one year. The program now operates 70 brigades in 22 countries.”

What is interesting about Terra Cycle is that it has created several waste collection programs, each called a Brigade, where someone or an organization can help collect items and send them in to Terra Cycle. Once sent in, the sender receives Terra Cycle points for the waste that otherwise would have ended up in the landfill

One of the group's major projects, in which the community may participate, is collecting juice pouches and chip/snack bags. Rather than dropping them into the trash, they are gathering them to earn money through a company called TerraCycle, which is an international upcycling and recycling firm that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging and products and repurposes the material into affordable, innovative products.