Chimo Elementary in Smiths Falls is competing to win a share of $3,200 through the inaugural Collection Craze, courtesy of Schneiders® Lunchmate® — one of Canada’s largest producers of premium quality food products — and recycling pioneer TerraCycle. Chimo Elementary is competing to collect the most lunch kit waste, including plastic trays, film and content packaging, to be sent to TerraCycle for recycling before May 31. The top 10 collecting schools will win a share of $3,200 in TerraCycle points that are redeemable for cash payment to an organization or school of their choice. During the Collection Craze contest period, participating schools also have the opportunity to win an extra $1,000 by entering a photo submission sweepstakes draw. All photos must be submitted via TerraCycle’s sweepstakes form. The first Collection Craze launched on April 1, specifically for schools throughout Canada. The Schneiders® Lunchmate® Recycling Program recently hit a nationwide milestone of nearly 500,000 units collected and over $10,000 dollars raised for charity.

Depuis 2015, les écoles Marguerite-Bourgeois et Jacques-Buteux ont recyclé plus de 133 896 articles. Le programme de recyclage TerraCycle Canada leur a versé plus de 3 500 $ pour leurs efforts.

C'est en recyclant, notamment, des emballages de collation, des bouchons de toutes sortes et des sacs de céréales en plastique que les écoles sont parvenues à de tels résultats. TerraCycle attribue des points pour les objets recyclés. Ces points sont par la suite convertis en dons pour une organisation de bienfaisance ou une école. TerraCycle Canada transforme les objets amassés pour leur donner une deuxième vie. Avec les déchets, l'organisation fabrique, entre autres, des tables à pique-nique.

À l'école Jacques-Buteux, le recyclage est supervisé par une brigade verte comptant une douzaine d'élèves de la 4^e à la 6^e année et un comité formé de membres du personnel. Cela fait deux ans que l'école participe au programme de TerraCycle, mais plus de 10 ans que l'établissement mise sur le recyclage et les valeurs qui s'y rattachent.

«C'est une belle façon pour nous de recycler, de diminuer nos déchets et de faire des sous pour les réinvestir dans notre jardin scolaire, mentionne Marie-Andrée Abel, enseignante à l'école Jacques-Buteux. On a un jardin de fleurs et de fines herbes devant notre école. On va bientôt faire nos plantations, alors on va se servir des sous pour la terre, entre autres.» Jusqu'à présent cette année, l'école a amassé plus de 100 $.

Plus de 3 000 $ en deux ans

Maman de trois garçons à l’école Marguerite-Bourgeois, Mélanie Poisson coordonne la collecte et l'envoi des objets recyclés. C'est d'ailleurs grâce à son initiative que l'école a amassé plus de 3 000 $ en deux ans.

«Quand mes enfants sont entrés à l'école, il y a eu une grosse campagne pour recycler les bouchons, raconte-t-elle. Ça adonnait que le parc-école de l'école était à refaire, alors j'ai pensé que ce serait une bonne idée pour amasser des sous. Avec 3-4 bouchons, on a un sou. Ça semble vraiment très peu dit comme ça, mais on a quand même amassé des centaines et des centaines de dollars depuis le début.»

«Au départ, les gens n'y croyaient pas, ajoute-t-elle. Il a fallu beaucoup de mots pour convaincre. Maintenant, le parc-école est payé et l'argent sert pour des activités scolaires. C'est une belle façon de s'impliquer pour l'école, mais aussi de transmettre de belles valeurs aux enfants. Ils peuvent voir à quoi ça sert concrètement de recycler.»

Au fil du temps, le réseau de recyclage de l'école s'est agrandi. Plusieurs commerces sont mobilisés pour la cause, dont des pharmacies. L'an dernier, dans le cadre d'un concours organisé par TerraCycle Canada, l'école Marguerite-Bourgeois a gagné un montant de 1 000 $ pour avoir amassé le plus de bouchons parmi tous les participants au Canada.

D'ailleurs, jusqu'au 31 mai, l'école participe à un autre concours, cette fois pour gagner une table faite de matériaux recyclés. Jusqu'à présent, l'école est au premier rang. Pour en savoir davantage ou pour voter : terracycle.ca Le saviez-vous?

Chaque année, à travers une vingtaine de pays, TerraCycle collecte et réaffecte des milliards de déchets, redistribuant des millions de dollars en dons à des écoles ou des associations.

 

As you may know, in February 2017, we installed a Terracycle cigarette butt recycling receptacle outside the shop. This was prompted by the large volume of butts discarded on the sidewalk. They are not only unsightly but they pose a tremendous environmental threat to our water system as they are washed away into grates, streams and lakes. Terracycle offers several recycling programs and this is no exception. Once the container is filled, we empty it, print a shipping label and UPS picks up the package at no cost to us. It’s easy! The waste is then recycled into plastic products including pallets. Fabulous!

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, and it is not a feature reserved only for products and services. B2B and retail companies, too, face the challenge of distinguishing themselves in the marketplace with a strong identity that stands out from direct and indirect competitors. The expanded retail landscape has altered the way consumers interact with brands, and E-commerce sites, dynamic mobile apps, and text message ordering systems afford infinite possibilities for communicating initiatives and marketing. Sustainability is now an essential aspect of brand building. Consumers increasingly expect companies to dedicate themselves to making a positive social or environmental impact on society as a baseline, rather than it automatically adding value. It’s no new idea that consumer brands that have not embraced sustainability and CSR initiatives are at risk. But creating the kind of value that grabs the attention of consumers requires some creative legwork. Think about the interactions that you, as a consumer, have with retail gift cards. You’ll sometimes get store credit for returned items on a charge card, get gift cards from your favorite store around holidays or on your birthday, take out a “points” card to accrue rewards at oft frequented retailers. These things are often connected to a phone number or credit card, and can be used digitally, but the fact is that 93 percent of U.S. consumers purchase or receive a gift card annually and less than 3 percent of local businesses sell their gift card online — that’s a lot of gift cards floating around. So what do you do with your retail gift card once it runs out or expires? Some stores allow you to put more funds on your card, extending its life, but for the most part, most gift and other retail cards just end up in the trash. Many registers and checkout stations have a waste bin in which you can throw your used cards, but then the plastic in these items is wasted. Many gift cards are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), or #3 plastic, which is not accepted in the current recycling infrastructure by most municipalities. Further, even if their plastic was accepted curbside, their small size would make them difficult to recycle. Addressing a novel need in the consumer experience creates a memorable association that keeps consumers coming back. For example, 20 VIC Management is a commercial property group in Canada working with TerraCycle to recycle gift cards. At 22 of its retail locations, which include malls and shopping centers, there will be a customized recycling box with eye-catching signage calling on consumers to recycle “Your Gift Cards Here!” The boxes will be located next to the Guest Services desk in the mall and where gift cards to the mall are sold for the convenience, access and information of consumers. This example illustrates the growing understanding that sustainability is becoming one of the most important aspects of reaching retail consumers. There is a demand for resources to inform and educate retailers and distributors on integrating new processes into their company infrastructure. Recognizing this, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and Sustainable Brands® have come together to host a Retail Innovation Track next month at SB’17 Detroit, where attendees from retail and consumer goods companies can focus on those issues most important to consumer-facing brands. This collaboration between the international trade alliance and the global business network is focused on growing the potential for business success through purpose-driven, sustainability-led innovation that creates scalable positive impact and profitability in retail. Demonstrating an authentic commitment to environmentally sound practices requires branding strategy in order to be effectively communicated to consumers, and tools are available for companies of all sizes to realize their full growth potential.

Consumers increasingly report a willingness to pay a premium for companies dedicated to sustainable causes, but they haven’t been as willing to pay it forward with more of their time. Despite an increased awareness of the need for more resources placed toward corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and social action, the challenge for the consumer (and volunteer managers) has long been a question of what they can do for sustainability, rather than showing what sustainability can do for them. To engage volunteers in a successful way, volunteer managers and organizers must effectively communicate an alignment with the volunteer’s personal values. When it comes to communicating an alignment with personal values, it doesn’t get more personal than on social media. Today, two-thirds of millennials — the most technologically inclined generation in history — use social media to engage around CSR issues. For advocacy groups and nonprofits, social media is an invaluable tool for reaching conscious consumers (including the more than nine-in-10 millennials reporting a willingness to switch brands to one associated with a cause) with targeted, effective calls-to-action. For example, AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) is a group on a mission to build the capacity of organizations working to alleviate poverty. Using social media, VISTA members have the opportunity to communicate the parameters of their respective programs, as well as provide real-life examples of their community impact to inform and recruit potential volunteers. This is done particularly well on the AmeriCorps VISTA Tumblr, which features engaging, visual photo and text posts that are short, to the point and have high visibility; the microblogging platform had 332.8 million blog accounts as of January 2017, 69 percent of whom are Millennials. At my company, TerraCycle, we too have continually seen the value social media can bring to our partners’, and our own, sustainability and activism efforts. Schneiders® Lunchmate®, a TerraCycle Canada program partner, is using social media to increase recycling collections and signups for its free, national recycling program by pushing out its new sign up promotion and a first shipment promotion online. Strategic cross-promotion via both the TerraCycle and Schnieders social media platforms communicates how easy it is to sign up and recycle through the program, and that participants have an opportunity to earn money for charity, incentivizing participation and adding value. Standard marketing says that practical, emotional, and social benefits are types of values consumers look for when buying a product. Similar principles apply to “selling” a cause. Where matters of time, money, and energy can be deterrents to getting involved through volunteerism, consumers must see activism as important, accessible, and relevant to their lives. Social media puts social responsibility and its benefits in the palm of our hand (often literally), and is a powerful tool in its ability to tell a story and allow consumers to see themselves as being a part of it. When leveraged strategically by identifying top priorities in your organization and communicating directly with stewards for social good, the value of volunteers will be made clear to the people you are trying to reach: the volunteers themselves.

PUR Water Filter Systems, from Helen of Troy Health and Home, officially launches in Canada today at an event featuring Dr. David Suzuki discussing the individual responsibility each Canadian has to the environment, and more specifically, water quality. PUR also launches its environmental stewardship and recycling program in conjunction with TerraCycle.   The next generation of PUR water filtration systems are certified to remove 99% of lead from drinking water. PUR launches two categories today as follows:   PUR Ultimate Pitcher Filtration System with Lead Reduction in 7-cup and 11-cup formats, plus respective filters. PUR pitchers are certified by WQA (Water Quality Association) to remove 14 contaminants including 99% of lead, 96% of mercury and 92% of certain pesticides, more than any other brand. 1 PUR Advanced Faucet Filtration System, plus respective filter. PUR faucet filters are certified to remove over 70 contaminants including 99% of lead, 96% of mercury and 92% of certain pesticides, more than any other brand. 1 PUR pitcher and faucet water filtration systems feature MAXION® Filter Technology; PUR's unique formulation approach for blending carbon and ion exchange materials for maximum contaminant reduction. PUR's water filtration systems are certified by both the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) and WQA to remove 99% of lead in drinking water.   "Drinking water takes a long journey when it leaves local treatment facilities and it's often not as clean once it gets to home faucets," advises Mr. Michael Mitchell, Director of Advanced Technologies for Helen of Troy Health and Home. According to Health Canada, Canadian Water Network and Canadian Water Quality Association, a majority of water infrastructures are aging and that increases the risk for contaminants such as lead, mercury, chlorine, pollutants, pesticides, and microbial cysts. 2,3,4   Kevin Wong, Executive Director of Canadian Water Quality Association confirms traces of these contaminants are found in regular municipal drinking water. "CWQA has been championing testing and establishing guidelines for safe drinking water with all levels of government for many years," said Mr. Wong.   MAXION® Filter Technology, empowers consumers to care for their water with an affordable solution (pitchers and faucet filtration systems) to provide healthier, great-tasting water and peace of mind. However, when it comes to the PUR Advanced Faucet Filtration system, it features PUR MineralClear®, which filters water over natural minerals for a crisp, refreshing taste, plus it removes 10x more contaminants than the leading brand water pitcher. 5   Mr. Mitchell concludes, "The MAXION filtration system is an industry leading technology that reduces contaminants that may be found in drinking water. For example, PUR's pitchers reduce 14 contaminants, and the faucet filtration systems reduce over 70 contaminants. Both the pitcher and faucet filter systems are certified to remove 99% of lead, plus the taste and odour of chlorine".   According to Dr. David Suzuki, it's becoming more important for the individual to care not only for the environment, but to take action on a personal level. Dr. Suzuki's latest research and work dedicated to the challenge of the 21st century and setting the bottom-line in the anthropocene, reveals that humans have a dependence on clean air and water, and that the web of all of life on earth is responsible for cleansing, replenishing and creating air and water amongst other factors.   PUR takes environmental stewardship very seriously, and in addition to creating an industry leading water filtration system, has gone one step further by partnering with TerraCylce, with a national recycling program, to help consumers reduce the impact of the water filtration system and product packaging on the environment. The PUR Recycling Program is open to any interested individual, school, office, or community organization. Participation is as easy as signing up on the TerraCylce website (www.terracycle.ca). Upon registering, TerraCycle then sends pre-paid shipping labels to the end user to send back waste, and uses it to up-cycle, recycle, and even creates art with it!

Careless smokers are covering the West Coast’s serene landscape with cigarette butts and local ocean lovers have launched a campaign to convince them to cut it out. Surfrider Pacific Rim is installing canisters throughout Tofino and Ucluelet as part of a ‘Hold onto Your Butts’ campaign designed to keep beaches and streets clean while raising awareness of cigarette pollution. “The Hold onto Your Butt campaign is a fun and proactive approach to stopping the flow of cigarette litter from sidewalks to storm drains and eventually out to the ocean,” Surfrider Pacific Rim chair Michelle Hall told the Westerly News. “The campaign aims to raise awareness about the environmental impact of cigarette butt litter on our oceans, waves and beaches...We are asking you to hold onto your butt until you see a canister to put it in; it’s easy.” Roughly 12 canisters have been installed so far on district-owned land in Tofino and Ucluelet as well as outside participating businesses like Wolf in the Fog, Wickaninnish Inn and Howlers Restaurant. “We will be working very closely with public works and businesses to monitor the cigarettes collected in the canisters, and celebrate together the prevention of butts from reaching the ocean, and instead being recycled,” Hall said. “Surfrider Pacific Rim will champion the use of these canisters and launch the HOTYB campaign to ensure that the community gets involved, and becomes part of the solution not the pollution. Continuing our work in the schools, to provide education to our youth is vital.” She explained canisters are emptied regularly and the butts shipped to the mainland to be recycled. “With the help of volunteers, public works and this amazing community of people, we will collect those butts, and get them recycled into other plastic products through a company called TerraCycle,” she said. “TerraCycle have formed an amazing relationship with the Surfrider Foundation in the US, and so we reached out to their Canadian branch and they were stoked to start working with us too. They also offer recycle services for items that may be hard to recycle here on the Pacific Rim, and that’s something we will be looking at for the future too.” Local Surfrider volunteers have picked roughly 3,073 cigarette butts off local beaches in the past year, according to the foundation’s cleanup records, making butts the third most frequently found debris behind plastics and styrofoam. “This problem isn’t exclusive to the Pacific Rim here on the West Coast,” Hall said. “The California Coastal Commission reports that 36% of debris removed as part of its annual California Coastal Cleanup Day are cigarette butts and other smoking related items.” She said roughly 4.95 trillion cigarette butts are tossed into the environment each year and these butts can take up to 25 years to decompose and leach toxins that threaten marine life. “We would like to make the general public more aware of their actions when it comes to throwing butts out the window of a car or on a beach, but also provide the solutions to enable people to dispose of butts in the canisters,” she said. Hall has been thrilled so see local excitement surround the young campaign. “Locals are already excited for this initiative, not just because this means cleaner streets, but locals are now able to take part in the solution to end butt pollution,” she said. “Having the canisters and the education, means that we can help others dispose of their butts properly, and let them know that they are awesome because their butts get recycled into other products. Thats a win-win.” Anyone interested in installing a canister at their business is encouraged to contact Surfrider at chair@pacificrim.surfrider.org and anyone interested in volunteering for the campaign can reach out to volunteercoordinator@pacificrim.surfrider.org. “Surfrider is looking for volunteers to help champion this campaign, whether that’s becoming a volunteer for the HOTYB team, helping to collect butts, or being part of informing the community to dispose of butts in the canisters,” Hall said. “Got some fun slogans about holding onto your butt? Have a fun idea for a spoof campaign video on keeping butts of the street? Let us know.”

Fanshawe is one of the first schools in Southwestern Ontario to recycle cigarette butts from its campus. Sustainability staff are hopeful that participating in a unique waste management program designed by a company called TerraCycle will decrease the devastating environ­mental impact of a bad habit. To get the most out of the program, stu­dents are urged to do their part and throw their butts in the designated containers, which custodial staff empty regularly into a larger bin that will be shipped to TerraCycle’s Mississauga headquarters. In the past year, Fanshawe ac­cumulated just over 77 pounds of butts. TerraCycle specializes in break­ing down the compounds of materi­als that do not biodegrade or cannot be recycled by the public sector. They compost the natural tobacco content of cigarette butts, while recycling the plastic into materials used to build playgrounds and park benches. The program even pro­vides a reimbursement for its ship­ping fee in the form of a charitable donation. Fanshawe has chosen to redirect these funds back into its sustainability programming. As sustainability co-ordinator Amanda Whittingham said, smok­ers need to think twice before flick­ing their butt onto the ground. There is a common misconception among smokers that cigarette butts are made of cotton. There is even less awareness of how harmful butts are to the environment. “Billions of filters are left on the ground, and their toxins leech into the soil. They can poison the ground water or can clog up the sewage stations and sanitary water stations, and that goes straight into the river,” Whittingham said. At that point, birds and fish con­sume the filters, and the neurotox­ins and hormone disruptors within. Often, this prevents males from properly displaying for mating. Over the process of bioaccumula­tion, humans are likely to eventual­ly ingest the same poisons. While some schools are not able to afford the extra cost of supple­mentary sustainable programs, Fanshawe’s status as one of the province’s four largest colleges has allotted it the freedom to focus on progressing. According to Ivan Walker, senior manager at Facilities Operations and Sustainability, uti­lizing services like TerraCycle will help to set a precedent and pave the way for other colleges. “Fanshawe is also very much about utilizing our resources wise­ly, not only recycling after you’ve used them but also before you’ve used them,” Walker said. “If you happen to see any energy wastages you can also drop a line at sustain­ability@fanshawec.ca and we’ll see if we can attend to those issues.”

What should we do with those K-Cups? What do we do with “unrecyclable” items? Long-standing office supply chain Grand & Toy, operating since 1882 and now an ecommerce site also driven by direct sales, has solutions; the company is all-in when it comes to going green. Through innovative partnerships and by example, it has demonstrated a sincere and comprehensive dedication to sustainable practices, which invites socially conscious young employees and loyal customers. Last fall, Grand & Toy — owned by U.S. office supply retailer Office Depot, Inc. — issued its seventh annual Corporate Sustainability Report, based on its Seven Pillars of Sustainability program established in 2007. A 2014 survey of its key stakeholders — customers, suppliers and associates — ranked “the relative importance of each issue to all stakeholders. Green products and recycling were deemed the most important aspects, followed by packaging and transportation efficiency.” The recent sustainability report highlights progress across several key areas, including recycling and green product initiatives, such as the reduction of waste and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as new programs which provide opportunities for customers to go green. Two notable takeaways provided by Grand & Toy: “In 2015, Grand & Toy launched a revolutionary green products classification program, assigning products a light, mid or dark green shade depending on their environmental attributes. The company created a dedicated ‘Go Green’ page to allow customers to search green products more effectively, as well as a ‘Greener Office’ page to encourage environmentally conscious purchasing practices. Sales of green products have increased to 24 percent of total sales, up 4 percent since 2014.” “The 2014 TerraCycle K-cup recycling pilot project was rolled out nationally in 2015 resulting in 270,000 recycled coffee capsules by Grand & Toy and its customers, a vast improvement over the 50,000 recycled in 2014. Also, other Zero Waste Boxes were introduced to help customers recycle the ‘unrecyclable’ including office supplies, personal protective equipment and computer accessories.” There’s also a new-ish volunteer program called Pause and Affect that grants Grand & Toy associates eight paid hours per year to participate in volunteer activities, such as tree planting and neighbourhood clean-up. From the program’s inception in May 2015 to year-end, Grand & Toy employees contributed 577 hours of volunteering across Canada, a number the company hopes to grow moving forward. Grand & Toy also stages corporate volunteer events such as packing school supplies for underprivileged children to further engage its employees. As Grand & Toy’s sustainability manager, Serguei Tchertok is responsible both for overseeing the Corporate Sustainability Report, as well as ensuring implementation and execution of its practices across the business. He spoke with Samaritanmag about the company’s many initiatives and why being the so-called green guy makes going to work in the morning such a pleasure. If you had to describe Grand & Toy’s sustainability efforts in an elevator pitch, how would you do it? I’d say our top priorities are greener products, recycling our products and making sure our community involvement is high and our associates are engaged in our communities. If we can achieve those things above all else, we’re doing okay. This is Grand & Toy’s seventh Corporate Sustainability Report. Put that in some perspective: how common are these kinds of reports in the business world. They’re becoming more and more common with both mid- to large-size corporations. t’s a heartening trend and research seems to indicate that younger workers often ask prospective employers about their governance and altruism before accepting jobs. In 2015, we published a Thought Leadership Insights Report. We collaborated with Hamilton’s McMaster University and asked students how they felt about their future employers’ sustainability practices. We asked students if they’d refuse a job offer if a company’s sustainability practices were not great as new graduates and as mid-career professionals. Many of the students — some 13 percent — said that sustainability mattered so much they’d turn down a job even as new graduates. When imagining themselves as mid-career professionals, most said they would reject a job offer. It’s clear that if you want to attract and keep the best and brightest, you must ensure your environmental and social practices are on par. Is it fair to say the office supply industry — with its high product attrition rate — is uniquely placed to lead the charge on sustainability? Yes, and that’s why recycling is one of our top sustainability issues. We definitely need to make sure we are taking better care of our products once they go out into the world. We have take-back programs for some of our products, such as the thINK program for ink and toner cartridges. In 2014 when I started with Grand & Toy, we formed a partnership with (waste solutions company) TerraCycle Canada and we became the first retailer in Canada to offer a recycling solution for coffee capsules such as K-cups. We launched that program nationally in 2015 and we added other recycling options for so-called unrecyclable products such as personal protective equipment, office supplies and even candy wrappers. Apart from its environmental impact and ability to attract talent, where else do you gauge the impact of these sustainability measures? Our top sustainability issue is green products so we want to be sure our product offering is expanded. And we want to move our customers towards environmentally friendly purchasing. If we can do that, it’ll eclipse anything we do internally as a corporation because the impact of buying recyclable products — or products with other meaningful environmental attributes — is huge. In some cases, that’s very measurable, as with paper where we can present people with life-cycle analysis of how much water, trees and energy has been saved. These numbers are quite impressive and they really add up.  

The leading producers of non-reusable coffee pods are trying to make a dent in the amount of waste flowing into Canadian landfills.   The tricky part is that single-serve pods made by Keurig and Nespresso aren’t easily recycled. Add to that, 40 per cent of Canadians say they have a pod-based coffee machine in their home, according to market researchers NPD Group.   Keurig pods are made of mixed materials — a plastic cup, paper filter, foil top and coffee grounds — and require effort to separate and recycle. Nespresso pods are mainly recyclable aluminum, which must be cleared of grounds.   Keurig coffee pods are now being burned for energy at the Covanta waste-to-energy facility in Burnaby after the closing of the LaFarge cement plant in Kamloops last year.   The LaFarge plant had been taking about 1.4 million plastic Keurig pods recovered each year by Van Houtte Coffee Services and turning them to ash, an ingredient in cement. But that all came to an end late in 2016 when LaFarge permanently shuttered the cement operation.   Pods from Van Houtte are processed by a partner company, Revolution, where the grounds are removed from the cups and used for certified organic compost, according to a Keurig spokesperson.   The plastic cups are incinerated by Covanta to produce electricity and heat.   Brianne Theberge, a resident of Coquitlam, is one of 5,840 Canadians who collect pods for recycling through the Nespresso Capsule Recycling Program.   “I collect Nespresso pods from our family and three other families in my neighbourhood,” she said. “We always felt bad using disposable capsules. It’s a one-time thing and then you throw it out and you feel bad about it. The problem is that we don’t drink enough coffee to make a whole pot.”   The pods are left intact and picked up by a courier each month and sent to TerraCycle Canada, a company that specializes in difficult-to-recycle packaging.   “We had been Nespresso users for years and then I got a letter in the mail from Nespresso about the recycling program,” she said. I thought, ‘It looks pretty easy, so I’m going to sign up.’ ”   Theberge collects pods — grounds included — from three of her neighbours, who deposit them on her porch once a month. She has collected more than 3,000 capsules for the program, which has diverted 9,659,604 capsules in Canada, according to Veronica Rajadnya of TerraCycle.   According to TerraCycle, plastics are washed, shredded and pelletized for use in manufacturing while the metals are smelted for reuse. Residual coffee is composted.   All single-use pods are accepted for recycling in British Columbia if the consumer first removes and disposes of the foil top and coffee grounds, according to Multi-Material B.C.   Reliable figures are hard to find, but Keurig confirms selling 57 billion pods worldwide to date.