TerraCycle and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) are working together to keep cigarette butts off streets and out of landfills. Employees of OLG Slots at Dresden Raceway and other OLG locations across the province contributed to TerraCycle’s province-wide Cigarette Waste Recycling Program, which just reached a milestone of 39 million cigarette butts diverted from Ontario’s waste stream. By helping to keep cigarette butts out of landfills, OLG Slots at Dresden Raceway and other collectors earn points that can be redeemed for cash donations to the non-profit of their choice. Thanks to collectors like OLG Slots at Dresden Raceway, province-wide donations have just passed $29,000. “OLG has been a proud participant of TerraCycle’s Cigarette Waste Recycling Program since 2012,” said Catherine Jarmain, Director, Policy and Social Responsibility at OLG. “During this time, our site-led recycling programs have contributed to OLG’s environmental footprint reduction and have generated funds that sites then donate to local charities. Last year, OLG sites hosted a total of 14 TerraCycle waste recycling programs which collected 885 kilos of previously non-recyclable waste and raised over $1,900 for local charities. It’s gratifying to know that through one initiative we are improving the environment and, at the same time, helping those in the community who depend on local charities for important services.” TerraCycle is an international recycling company that finds innovative solutions for materials not typically accepted at municipal recycling facilities. The waste collected through the Cigarette Waste Recycling Program is recycled into a variety of industrial products, such as plastic pallets, and any remaining tobacco and paper is recycled as compost. “Every year, billions of cigarette butts end up in dumpsters and landfills, or get tossed as litter on shorelines, parks, and sidewalks across Canada” said TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. “We have a big ‘thank you’ for the more than two thousand locations that have helped us collect 73 million cigarette butts through this recycling program.” Any individual, business or organization interested in reducing local landfill waste can learn more about TerraCycle at www.terracycle.ca.

Cleaning garbage off the streets of downtown Victoria can be a tedious, never-ending task, but a local group is always up to the challenge.   On weekdays, the Downtown Victoria Business Association's Clean Team, armed with green jackets and cleaning tools such as brooms, garbage cans, kitty litter and cleaner, comb downtown Victoria streets searching for garbage, such as cigarette butts, to pick up.   Over the past three years, they've collected thousands of cigarette butts. Now, the Clean Team, along with similar organizations around the country, have reached a new milestone — they have helped collect 73 million cigarette butts nationwide diverting them from the waste stream.   “It's an enormous number,” said Rob Caunter, manager of the Clean Team. “Not only does it improve the aesthetics of downtown, but it keeps cigarette butts out of storm drains, out of our oceans where fish could eat them, and ultimately out of our food sources.”   The Clean Team's cigarette butt recycling project is a partnership between the Surfrider Foundation and the City of Victoria, which began in 2014.   As part of the pilot project, cigarette butt canisters have been installed around the city, encouraging smokers to discard their butts in the canisters, rather than throwing them onto the street, where they often end up in storm drains and eventually the ocean.   “They're not biodegradable and they are jammed full of toxins that filter out of these cigarettes,” said Caunter, adding the canisters have been helpful in reducing the number of butts on the street, but more canisters are needed.   “It's like putting a million poisonous things in the ocean on an on-going basis.”   Every week, Clean Team members are tasked with emptying the canisters and picking up additional butts, which are then packaged and shipped off to TerraCycle Canada, a company that takes difficult-to-recycle packaging and turns it into affordable and innovative products, such as industrial plastics for palettes and garden benches.   The Clean Team is responsible for more than just picking up cigarette butts around town. Members also wash windows, doorways, and recesses of buildings, clean up graffiti and remove drug paraphernalia year-round.

Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, through TerraCycle’s free, national Cigarette Waste Recycling Program, has helped the nationwide collection reach a milestone of 73 million cigarette butts diverted from the waste stream, it was announced March 2. Along with keeping butts out of landfills, collectors earn points that can be redeemed for cash donations to the non-profit of the collector’s choice. Through the efforts of collectors like Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, nationwide donations have just passed $53,500. “Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise has an extensive recycling program,” said Mortimer Capriles, environmental systems manager, Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, in a release. “As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our environmental performance, the sustainability committee and the grounds team decided to start a cigarette waste recycling program in 2015, with the support of TerraCycle.” TerraCycle is an international recycling company that finds innovative solutions for materials not typically accepted at municipal recycling facilities. The waste collected through the Cigarette Waste Recycling Program is recycled into a variety of industrial products, such as plastic pallets, and any remaining tobacco and paper is recycled as compost. Founded in 2001, TerraCycle is a leader in the collection and reuse of non-recyclable postconsumer waste. It repurposes the waste into sustainable, affordable materials and consumer products. In 21 countries, the waste is collected through programs that donate money to schools and charities.

Not everyone cares about keeping the West Coast clean, which means its up to volunteers to keep local shores pristine. After riding a swell of support last year, Surfrider Pacific Rim is ready to rip into 2017. “Surfrider has built a network of coastal defenders who transform a passion for our coast into a lasting protection,” said chapter-president Michelle Hall during a recent presentation to Tofino’s municipal council. “We’re fortunate to live in a place where passion for protection is in our blood and we’re a community of guardians including First Nations, environmentalists, scientists as well as ocean lovers, surfers, beach walkers and dog lovers.” She said the foundation laid solid groundwork in 2016 by raising awareness of its initiatives and engaging with the community. “We’re really inclusive to everyone and volunteers really enjoy the citizen feel of our organization,” she said. “Our voice is always positive and we’re always sharing solutions.” She added the foundation holds a public meet up at Tofino Brewing Company on the first Wednesday of every month. “We have a solid crew of 21 amazing people in Tofino and Ucluelet,” she said. “It’s a really good way for new people coming to Tofino and Ucluelet to get involved with their community.” The foundation welcomed over 250 volunteers to 24 beach cleanups in 2016, according to Hall, who said the five most commonly found pollutants were plastics, styrofoam, cigarette butts, fishing gear and recyclables. “In 2016 we collected almost 5,000 kilograms of marine debris from our pristine coastline,” she said. The local Surfrider crew earned huge accolades and widespread media attention with its Straws Suck campaign last year that saw 41 local businesses nix single-use straws from their operations and brought  increased awareness around plastic pollution. Hall said three major campaigns are in the works for 2017: an Ocean Friendly Business, Bring your own Bag and Hold onto your Butt. “The Ocean Friendly Business Campaign will invite all businesses in the Pacific Rim to reduce and eliminate single use plastics,” she said adding straws will continue to be targeted along with shopping bags, single-use cutlery and take-away packaging. “We are working on grants and sponsorships to launch this program.” She said the Ban the Bag campaign will promote the use of re-useable shopping bags and will include a bag-making challenge supported by Tourism Tofino that will test whether or not the West Coast can create 1,000 bags in time for the Pacific Rim Whale Festival in March. The Hang onto Your Butt campaign is aimed at eliminating cigarette pollution and features a unique partnership with TerraCycle, an organization that offers a variety of environmentally-minded programming including a Cigarette Waste Recycling Program. “The waste collected through the Cigarette Waste Recycling Program is recycled into a variety of industrial products, such as plastic pallets, and any remaining tobacco is recycled as compost,” according to TerraCycle’s website. Hall said Surfrider’s anti-cigarette waste program would help raise awareness of the impacts butts have locally. “A big part of the campaign is education. I don’t think an actual campaign or education around cigarette pollution has really been prominent in Ucluelet or Tofino,” she said. During her presentation in Tofino, Hall said Surfrider partnered with Ucluelet to install nine cigarette butt canisters throughout the community. She said Ucluelet’s public works crew empties the canisters and hands the butts off to Surfrider to recycle. “We hope that Tofino would do the same,” she said. “This wouldn’t just be a case of installing them and letting you guys empty them and that’s it, we plan on engaging the youth and doing lots of education at all of our beach cleanups and events throughout the year.” The canisters cost $100 each, according to Hall, and Tofino’s council agreed to buy one for their municipal hall immediately after Hall’s presentation. Coun. Greg Blanchette expressed admiration for the foundation’s quick rise. “Surfrider is really surging ahead in terms of volunteer engagement, community engagement and business engagement, in a way that, in my experience on the Coast, is basically unprecedented,” he said. “Congratulations on all of your successes.” Mayor Josie Osborne agreed. “I want to say thank you and really commend you, Michelle, for your leadership and Surfrider for everything that you do,” she said. “You really have gone above and beyond in terms of your community engagement and what I really appreciate is how positively everything is occurring.”

Did you know that, according to the Ocean Conservancy,  cigarette litter is not only the #1 item found during marine clean ups, but it is also the 4th deadliest ocean trash after fishing gear, plastic bags/cutlery and balloons? In fact, estimates suggest that globally, “1.69 BILLION pounds of butts wind up as toxic trash each year”  equating to as many as “4.95 trillion” butts. Certainly at a local level, cigarette litter is unsightly and a nuisance, but it also poses environmental problems as our storm sewers lead directly to local waterways.  Visualize what happens during a storm every time you walk past a littered storm sewer. We at ZuZu want to play a part in reducing cigarette litter in our downtown Barrie streets, one butt at a time. Our Terracycle Butt Collection receptacle is up and ready to receive. It’s already in use and we are encouraging smokers from near and far to place their cigarette litter in it as you pass by. But it’s only one and we need more available to make it easier and convenient to butt out. So we’re asking other business and property owners to invest a small amount and buy one ($100), mount it and let smokers know that we care about our downtown streets. It’s up to all of us to make a difference for our beautiful downtown.

Procter & Gamble recently collaborated with TerraCycle and Suez, the largest waste management company in Europe, on the world's first fully recyclable shampoo bottle made with 25% plastic collected from beaches. This packaging made with post-consumer recycled (PCR) content will soon be available in France. A recent report from the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in the UK reveals that of the 300 million tons of virgin plastic that's produced annually, 43% ends up incorrectly deposited in the garbage and ends up in landfills. This is particularly significant because it means that most plastic packaging is used only once. Considering that the look and shape of the Head & Shoulders shampoo bottle seems to remain unchanged, the makeup of this shampoo bottle sets a precedent that brands across multiple industries should take note of.

There are about 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean, a great deal of which is washing up on beaches around the world, resulting in the high-profile fouling of shorelines in Hawaii and Alaska. In an effort to clean up some of this pollution, consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble is planning to produce Head & Shoulders shampoo bottles partly made from beach plastic. The company told The Guardian that the containers will be made from 25 per cent of these recycled materials, collected by thousands of volunteers on the shorelines of France. P&G called it a “first major step” towards establishing a supply chain using the recycled debris. “We felt that the leading shampoo brand in sales should lead in sustainability innovation and know that when we do this, it encourages the entire industry to do the same,” Lisa Jennings, vice-president of global hair at P&G, said in a release. The pilot project, which also involves recycling business TerraCycle and waste management firm Suez, will result in up to 170,000 recycled bottles on shelves across France this summer, according to The Guardian. Steve Morgan, the technical director of plastics recycling organization Recoup, told The Guardian that it is a “technological breakthrough,” despite its limited run. “In the past when companies have tried to use plastics that have been sourced from oceans or beaches, it hasn’t been technically possible because of the exposure to UV, and also the plastics degrade and don’t recycle that well. What they’ve done here is make it technically viable, which is kind of the big thing,” said Morgan. He added that the techniques used by P&G could become “more mainstream” once the technology is further developed and the cost advantage improves. The company also promised to produce more than a 500 million of the same type of bottles per year across Europe by the end of 2018. P&G said this figure represents 90 per cent of all of its haircare bottles sold on the continent. It estimated it will require 2,600 tonnes of recycled plastic each year, or the equivalent of eight fully-loaded Boeing 747s. The company is aiming to double the amount of PCR plastic, post-consumer resin or reclaimed material, that it uses in packaging by 2020. “Increasing the use of recycled plastic in the packaging of our flagship brands, like Pantene and Head & Shoulders, makes it easier for consumers to choose more sustainable products, without any trade-offs,” said Virginie Hellas, vice-president of global sustainability at P&G. “So while we’re proud of what we’ve done and what we’re doing, we know there is much more work ahead.” The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a United Kingdom-based non-profit, estimates that plastic production will double in the next 20 years. However, current efforts are only leading to 14 per cent it being recycled. But it estimates that number could be bumped up to 70 per cent.

When somebody does something awesome at waste recycling business TerraCycle, it triggers a sound that’s literally heard around the world. Each of the company’s 20 global offices is outfitted with a large gong and mallet, and protocol requires the person behind the achievement to take a big swing. She must also send out a virtual “gong hit” to the corporate email list, which prompts colleagues in other offices to strike their own gongs in celebration. “It creates an immediate spread of positivity,” says Tom Szaky, CEO and founder of the Trenton, N.J.-based firm. Bragging might feel sketchy, but there’s increasing evidence to support banging your own gong in a professional context. Peggy Klaus, an executive coach and the author of Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It, says that in the resource-constrained environment in which most companies operate, it’s important to make your own value known. “Your boss doesn’t have the bandwidth to advocate for you,” says Klaus. “When it’s time for a promotion, he or she needs to know what you’ve done.” It’s not just about self-actualization: employers can benefit greatly by institutionalizing a boastful culture, too. When everyone is forthcoming with their achievements, it lessens the likelihood managers will disproportionately favour only natural show-offs. And Klaus adds that when employees feel comfortable bragging about their own accomplishments, they are also more inclined to talk up colleagues or the company as a whole—especially in front of outsiders (read: clients). But there’s a fine line between helpful self-promotion and being a blowhard. And the opposite angle, “humblebragging”—using false modesty to raise your profile—only makes people roll their eyes, according to Harvard Business School research. So, what’s the secret to constructive crowing? Klaus advocates a pithy approach. “Don’t make it a laundry list,” she says. “Find the ‘brag bites’ that mention your success.” That means keeping the spotlight near, but not directly on, you. For example, you might note to a new acquaintance that you just marked your fifteenth year in marketing, having progressed into a role that lets you work with some of the smartest people in the business. Of course, some people are reluctant boasters. Only 35% of respondents to a May 2016 LinkedIn survey felt comfortable talking about their achievements. Research suggests that women, in particular, tend to understate the value of their work. To prompt her almost all-female team to share accomplishments, Amy Laski, the president and founder of Toronto PR agency Felicity, created several brag-friendly platforms, including a private Facebook page and a biweekly internal newsletter, and actively solicits her staff to fill them with good news. Laski says this sets the tone that good work should be celebrated. She’s also found it to have a snowball effect: when one person shares something great that they’ve done, others are quick to do the same. Technology also helps. Achievers, which makes employee recognition and rewards software, is looking into automatically adding notable feats—like passing an online course—to employee profiles. This could help coax shyer folks into the spotlight, says Egan Cheung, Achievers’ vice-president of product management. At TerraCycle, where the gong rings up to eight times a week, people have become totally comfortable with self-promotion—at times, too comfortable. “One office used to send out really meaningless gong hits—like, for having a company party—and we had to coach them,” says Szaky. “It has to be about ‘wow,’ otherwise people just tune it out.”

For the past 20+ years, recycling has been available in most municipalities in Canada. It would appear that in that time, recycling would be a straight forward business where all recyclable materials are being recycled.  Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Recycling of materials varies from municipality to municipality and from region to region. Large cities and metropolitans tend to have a better recycling program as oppose to suburban or rural areas. In many rural areas all recycling materials need to be dropped off at a local recycling drop-off stations. Needless to say, this greatly reduces the success of recycling. Other factors influencing recycling success rates are understanding of what materials are acceptable, how to prepare and sort items and the most importantly, having access to affordable recycling programs. Many waste management companies and smaller recyclers offer various programs in urban and suburban areas. Yet much of the waste makes it into our streets, forests and waterways.  The oceans are littered with cigarette butts, plastic bottles, plastic bags and other plastic items that are recyclable, but not recycled. According to Statistics Canada, in 2010 only 32% of our waste was recycled. To fill the gap in our recycling system,  Terracycle has launched its new program ZeroWaste boxes. They offer recycling options for hard-to-recycle materials such as plastic packaging, styrofoam products, household and cleaning items, beauty products, pet food bags, lunch room waste and much more. The boxes are an affordable solution for businesses that may not have large quantities of waste, yet want to recycle as much as possible. At NewSpring Energy, we have been using ZeroWaste boxes for plastic packaging since the summer. It has been astonishing how much plastic we have collected in those few months. Plastic wraps, styrofoam packaging, shrink wrap, food packaging, plastic bags, styrofoam containers, milk bags and more. It showed us just how difficult it is to avoid all that plastic. With TerraCycle ZeroWaste box program,  we have diverted from landfill 3.8 ft3 of plastic packaging waste to day. We are committed to reducing waste and recycle as much as possible.

Mégot Zéro is a campaign headed by the Société pour l'action, l'éducation et la sensibilisation environnementale de Montréal (SAESEM) that would like to see fewer cigarette butts on our streets. They have partnered with the City of Montreal as well as TerraCycle to make this happen. The project began in June 2016 when cigarette butt receptacles were placed in busy thoroughfares such as downtown, the Village, and Old Montreal, all in the Ville-Marie borough, enabling smokers to have an alternative place to dispose their butts. The butts are then collected weekly and shipped to TerraCycle in Toronto (with whom A Greener Future also partners) where they are composted and recycled.   I had the chance to touch base with SAESEM’s project manager Myriam Plante via email who was able to give me more insight on the project and where it’s headed. When asked why she thinks throwing butts on the ground has become so acceptable, Ms. Plante answered that the problems related to cigarette butt litter are not discussed as often as they should be. She says that people start to feel bad when they learn about the toxicity of the butts and the harm that they can do to the environment. Therefore, besides providing public ashtrays for those who smoke, education is also an integral part of the project. SAESEM has spread the word of Mégot Zéro to the restaurants, shops, and citizens of the neighbourhoods where their ashtrays are located letting them know what the project is about. Surveys were also conducted after installation for feedback on the project. Since the project has been well received in the participating neighbourhoods, the ashtrays there will stay put with another borough ready to jump on board in 2017. They also have received extensive media coverage from news outlets such as the CBC, Huffington Post, CTV, and Radio-Canada which has helped get their message across to larger audiences. SAESEM has plans to expand next year by working with private organizations while continuing their partnership with the city. Since June, the organization has recovered 200,000 butts from both their public ashtrays and other collaborations.    Montreal is the third city in Canada to have a cigarette butt recycling project in place. The first two were in Toronto and Vancouver, the latter being the world’s first city to embark on such an endeavour.