Honest Tea, an organic beverage company, made headlines when it launched an app to recycle Facebook posts last week and set up a 30-foot-tall inflatable recycling bin in New York City's Times Square on Monday. It's all part of a campaign the 14-year-old company, bought by Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) last year, calls "The Great Recycle." The company's goal is to recycle every bottle it produces by 2020. That's a worthy target, especially considering that Honest Tea generates approximately 20 million glass bottles and 60 million plastic bottles annually. It has a long way to go before it's as sustainable as it can be. If I could change one thing about the company, it would be to reduce its use of plastic bottles and single serve juice containers. Studies have shown that plastic bottles leach, and plastic is made of petroleum products, which is not a renewable source. Worse yet is single-use products, which can't be reused.

HONEST TEA, like other organic beverage sellers, normally promotes its real leaves, fair trade certified tea, less sugary taste and environmentally friendly packaging. Its newest campaign acknowledges that it is part of a problem of waste in discarded drink containers and, to counter that, encourages more recycling. Enlarge This Image A rendering of a giant bin for Honest Tea's "Great Recycle" on April 30 in Times Square. The company alone generates about 20 million glass bottles and 60 million plastic bottles annually. Over all, Americans used 38.6 billion glass beverage containers, and 71.9 billion plastic beverage bottles in 2010, according to the Container Recycling Institute, an antiwaste organization based in Culver City, Calif., that tracks data on the topic.

Mat McDermott/CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Social media is applauded as a means of engaging crowds, creating change and encouraging action. To see where the perception of social media’s power originated, we need only to look at the pivotal role it played in political events such as the Arab Spring and Green Revolution in Iran. Not to mention those here at home – think: #occupy. Social media certainly helps spread the word, but does it mean that less people are actively participating in events? While the actual news can spread like wildfire across the Internet, do as many people get off the couch or get up from their desk to follow through on the things they “like” or “share”? I’m wondering how much “good” social media can really do for the environment. If someone clicks “Like” on TerraCycle’s Facebook page, or retweets a Treehugger.com tweet, that’s fantastic. But it doesn’t take down our carbon output or bring back a demolished forest. I love seeing the good social media is doing – don’t get me wrong. It’s a large part of TerraCycle’s initiatives, and same goes for many other companies. Check it out:

The challenges of a waste-recycling business. This is getting a little embarrassing. Twice now I have written about a new program that I think is going to allow us to dramatically expand our recycling efforts. Both times — when I first mentioned the program eight months ago and when I wrote about it again almost two months ago — I thought we were just a few weeks from introducing the program. Both times I was wrong. We have now determined that we are about six months away. The goal of our new program — we’re calling it “W.O.W.” or “World of Waste” — is to forge a direct link with our collectors, allowing us to recycle even more streams of waste. For example, today we collect about 2.5 percent of all of the drink pouches in America through a program that is sponsored by Capri Sun and Honest Tea and free to all participants. On the other hand, we have not yet been able to secure a sponsor to recycle used batteries. W.O.W. will allow us to collect batteries and a host of other waste streams. But in these cases, the costs will be paid by consumers, at least until we find sponsors. So what happened? Why the delays?

TerraCycle, upcycled design powerhouse and purveyor of worm poop plant food, helps usher in spring with two new products: A watering can made from granola bags and a plant caddy made from juice pouches.

Almost six months ago I wrote about a new program that I expected to sharply expand our recycling efforts and possibly even shift our entire business model. The program, I thought then, was about two weeks from its introduction. Turns out, we didn’t quite get there. What happened was a series of huge information technology delays — so many that the program has only just now gone into beta testing with an anticipated go-live date of mid-April. The goal is to be up and running in time for Earth Day (April 22), which is effectively Christmas for companies like TerraCycle. If it does come together, it will not be the first major evolution of our business model. We got started selling worm-waste plant fertilizer in reused bottles. Today, we still sell our plant food but we also have more than 30 million people around the world collecting previously non-recyclable waste streams that we turn into more than 1,500 products.

Happy Valentine's Day and TerraCycle Tuesday! Today we're looking at one of our most popular brigades, the Drink Pouch Brigade. What can be TerraCycled in this category? Answer: any brand aluminum drink pouches and plastic drink pouches What CANNOT be TerraCycled in this category? Answer: juice boxes What does this waste get used for? Check out the neat video below to find out what happens to your juice pouches!

TerraCycle’s food packaging recycling programs began with drink pouches. Those programs have expanded from Capri Sun and Honest Kids drink pouches, to Flavia Fresh Packs, Sprout baby food pouches, and Method Cleaner Refill packs. Clif Family Winery is soon launching a Brigade for their Climber Wine Pouches and other wine pouch packaging. Nowadays, pouches are in every aisle of every big-box retailer. They’re convenient, durable, lightweight, affordable, an all around “win”… that is until it is time to recycle them.

For today's post during this TerraCycle Refresher week on our blog, I'm sharing a list and description of what items we collect for TerraCycle here at Blue Ridge. Glue Bottles/Sticks Any size Elmer's brand glue sticks and plastic glue bottles are acceptable. Only Elmer's please! We earn $0.02 per item.ri

Honest Tea's newest line, Honest Kids, are juice pouches which are organic, low in sugar, and a great alternative to sugar filled beverages. They come in five great flavors, Appley Ever After, Goodness Grapeness, Berry Berry Good Lemonade, Tropical Tango Punch and Super Fruit Punch. Honest Kids and TerraCycle are working together to make sure drink pouches don't end up in the landfill. As eco-friendly innovator, TerraCycle converts the drink pouches into unique fashion bags, tote bags, pencil cases, and other fun items for kids and adults. (check them out, very cool)