FREE INSTRUMENT RESTRING/RECYCLING EVENT HOSTED BY BRIGHTWOOD MUSIC
Local musicians are invited to attend a free recycle and restring event at Brightwood Music in Nederland, CO on Wednesday April 10, 2019 from 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM. Sponsored by D’Addario and TerraCycle, musicians can bring any old instrument strings for recycling and get their electric or acoustic guitars restrung with D’Addario NYXL or Nickel Bronze Acoustic strings. Old strings collected during the event will be recycled through Playback, D’Addario’s free, national recycling program.
L’Occitane, Herbal Essences and Unilever have all teamed up with the recycling firm this year
Gillette has become the latest beauty brand to team up with recycling firm TerraCycle on a new sustainability effort.
Customers across the US will now be able to recycle their used razors through three new programmes.
The Gillette Razor Recycling Program invites customers to deliver their razors directly to TerraCycle for recycling.
Gillette Razor Local Recycling Solutions allows business, gyms, colleges and community organisations to become a drop-off point for consumers to dispose of their razors.
Through this programme, organisations will be able to earn money for the waste they recycle; for every shipment weighing 15 pounds, collectors will earn points that can be donated to charity as a gift or cash sum.
Meanwhile, the brand’s Gillette On Demand Razor Recycling Program allows customers to subscribe for Gillette’s razors and return them in the same packaging to TerraCycle.
Founder and CEO of TerraCycle Tom Szaky said: “We are proud to partner with this forward-thinking company to offer consumers a way to divert razor waste from landfills.”
Gary Coombe, Gillette’s CEO added: “We are very excited about our partnership with TerraCycle to offer recycling for Gillette, Venus or any razor brand across the US.
“This is an important first step towards sustainable solutions for shaving products and the start of an exciting journey with Gillette and TerraCycle.
“We are thrilled to bring this option to our consumers in the US and are already working on plans to rollout to more countries very soon.”
We’ve been doing a lot of work and thinking about life-cycle assessment (LCA) and its relationship to the concept of the circular economy.
When I heard Tom Szaky, founder of recycling innovator TerraCycle, talk about his company’s initiatives to eliminate the concept of waste, I asked him about the use of LCA to analyze what they were doing. He was of the opinion that LCA wasn’t the right tool to assess the circular economy.
Previously, I had asked a longtime practitioner about a situation where the use of a recycled material required far less energy than virgin material. In a case like that, shouldn’t there be added incentive for users to recycle? His response was that if landfilling had fewer impacts than the recycling process, they should just landfill the product.
These are just two examples of how current LCA practice and circular economy principles appear to be at odds with one another. But LCA is the best tool we’ve got for analyzing environmental impacts of recycling systems. So, is the circular economy not as good as we think? Do we need a different tool? Or does LCA need to evolve?
Some colleagues and I have been sharing ideas to see if there might be a better way to look at recycling and reuse. Currently, when a typical LCA deals with end-of-life landfill, the analysis is simple: We just add the landfill process, including the required activities of transport and waste burial, and any leachate that may occur. But when we deal with reuse or recycling, we consider the benefit of such actions and account for "avoided burden."
How come we tend to look at the implications of one end-of-life action but not others? What if we change the default perspective to reuse, and see that the effects of landfilling, just like recycling, go beyond the direct activities?
Landfill is actually a driver for more virgin product because it removes from circulation material that could have been recycled and put back into the circular stream. We’re working on a method that will flesh that out more fully.
In the meantime, we put on our systems-thinking caps to consider the circular economy more carefully.
LCA uses lots of tricks to allow us to consider two product lives in one — either benefitting the first life with a credit or the second life with not needing to use virgin material. But rarely is there a significant benefit to both lives.
In reality, when a product is recycled, there are actually two products being produced at different times. Our functional unit is no longer "one of product V" (made of virgin material) but "one of product V and one of product R" (made with recycled material). If product V isn’t recycled, product R becomes another product V by default. We can then look at this more complete system to understand which is better.
Figure 1 (above) shows the case where Product V is recycled after being supplied at Time 1. Perhaps the ideal case of reuse is my grandmother’s cast iron frying pan, which already has lasted two generations and could endure for five more. For that skillet, the "recycling" process would be a thorough cleaning and the manufacturing process could be skipped.
Figure 2 (above) shows what happens if Product V supplied at Time 1 is landfilled instead of being recycled. It is clear that there is both a landfill step and a need to obtain virgin material to create the product to be supplied at time 2.
Requiring both products to be included in a single model eliminates the need to split the impacts between them, and clearly shows the change in system-wide impacts. At the same time, it requires a manufacturer to understand the impacts of its products beyond placement in the recycle bin. Is the product really recycled? What is Product R? Is Product R really equivalent to the Product V it replaces?
The goal of circular economy concepts is to help us make the world a better place. Fulfilling that aspiration will require assessment methods that can distinguish good circular economy ideas from bad ones — to answer, for example, the question of whether recycling a particular product in a particular way is actually beneficial.
LCA is a potentially good tool for that but, to date, it has been providing mixed messages. By including both the initial product and the product made from recycled material in our functional unit, we can bring the process into better alignment with circular economy thinking and gain a clearer picture of what’s really happening.
We’re not quite finished with all of this work and thinking. So if you have ideas or a project you want us to work on, please contact us.
Web designer by day and artist by trade, local Trenton artist, Leon Rainbow, has made a name for himself with his graffiti artwork for more than 20 years. From complete murals to gallery openings, to body painting, ink canvassing and teaching art, Rainbow spends a majority of his life surrounded by color and creativity.
Rainbow grew up in California and says as a kid he loved playing with bristle blocks, brightly colored plastic shapes that stick together with rounded bristles. By second grade he was drawn to artwork at the same time as break-dancing and hip-hop became popular. He became inspired to get into the related world of graffiti.
Rainbow made his first graffiti tag–a stylized single-color graffiti signature–at the age of 13. He cut school and stole markers. “That was like our rebellious thing that we did when I was a kid,” he says.
Rainbow’s rebellious childhood later lead to a battle with addiction, but now he has 22 years clean and he has used his decades in recovery to advance his work.
“Being in recovery totally revolutionized my life…I couldn’t have been successful, or at least to the level I am now, if I was still getting high,” he says.
The success Rainbow was able to achieve exists in many different forms. He made his first Trenton mural 20 years ago in 1999. For a time he attended MCCC and is an alumn. In 2005 he began working for the Trenton based organization, Terracycle.
Veronica Rajadnya, Writing and Content Manager of TerraCycle says the organization is “a company on a mission to eliminate the idea of waste…Leon Rainbow has been working with TerraCycle since before I got here…I believe as far back as the very first graffiti jam.”
The graffiti jam is part of a larger and popular Trenton festival called Jersey Fresh Jam, which features art, music and creativity from the locals.
Rajadnya says, “[Rainbow] has a big personality, really fun to be around…very much a friend of TerraCycle…sometimes he’ll come in and say hi to all of us during the graffiti jams.”
Originally called the Worm Poop Jam, the Jersey Fresh Jam festival consists of 50 graffiti artists, 10 music performers, 5- 10 DJs and food vendors. Rainbow describes it as “A real hip-hop party.” It is located right outside of the TerraCycle office at 121 New York Ave. in Trenton.
Graffiti artists from Trenton, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore travel to this event to repaint the walls of their “cork yard”.
“[It’s] basically like an all day party,” Rajadnya says.
Currently, Rainbow and Terracycle are collaborating on a newer project called “Scrapped,” a showcase of work made from upcycled and reclaimed art located at the BSB gallery; a short walk from Mercer’s JKC campus. All of the artworks are created by artists associated directly with the TerraCycle company.
In the past, Rainbow has done graffiti aerosol classes at Terracycle, and he will be teaching them again throughout the spring and summer starting in April.
He has also taught after school classes in Trenton and Princeton for 3 years.
Another music festival Rainbow is associated with is the Levitt Festival in Trenton’s Mill Hill Park section. This project lead Rainbow to get an even bigger project with the Cure Insurance Arena.
A mural for Mercer County Community college in Trenton by Leon Rainbow. Photo: Kristen Miller.
According to Rainbow, a lot of effort is needed to obtain larger and more advanced projects. “A lot of it is just taking calculated risks and trying to, you know, be able to complete the projects that you do at a high level,” he says.
Rainbow adds, “There’s a lot of people that probably could be more talented than me that might not have the same mindset that I have and might not be able to do the things I’ve been able to do because they’re not going to apply themselves,” he says.
He continues, “If you’re dedicated and you do it enough and have a passion for it, then you’ll get noticed.”
Jersey Fresh Jam will be held at the end of August. See Rainbow’s work at the running show “Scrapped” at the BSB gallery, ending April 13th, and his website www.leonrainbow.com
Got the urge to purge? Read on to determine which beauty products to keep, how to organize them, and how to safely toss the items you don’t need. (Recycling isn’t just for the kitchen.)
Assess what you’ve got.
Remove all your products from your bathroom, vanity, makeup bag, etc. and lay them out on a large white sheet or towel. “This clean background lets you clearly see and assess what you have, and it’s particularly helpful for seeing the colors and textures of your makeup,” explains makeup artist and beauty expert Jenny Patinkin. Categorize everything: Split up makeup, skin-care, and hair-care items, and then divide each of those piles into subcategories according to type of product. Now get down to business: “If you haven’t even picked up a product in two years, it’s got to go,” says Patinkin. Cast those items aside quickly and without thinking too much; don’t lament over how much money you spent on that pricey serum you never used. (More on what to do with those products in a minute.)
RELATED: The Best Anti-Aging Products of All Time, According to Top Dermatologists
Next, assess the quality of what’s left. Any change in texture, color, or smell is a telltale sign that a product is past its prime. If the color is separated on your nail polish, even after you shake it, it’s time to get rid of it. Skin-care items often come with expiration dates, so anything that has expired should go. This quality assessment is important not only for hygiene reasons but also for efficacy purposes, especially when it comes to makeup. “Anything that’s cracked, crumbly, dry, or separated isn’t going to apply evenly,” notes Patinkin. Once you’ve gotten rid of the old stuff, purge any multiples. Have six red lipsticks? Ten pink nail polishes? Limit yourself to one of each shade, keeping the one you reach for most often.
Patinkin suggests putting the products that have made the cut into a box and storing the box outside your bathroom. Anytime you need something, take it out of the box and leave it in the bathroom. “Do this for three weeks. If there are still products in the box after that, chances are high that you’re never going to use them, so get rid of those too,” she says.
Organize what’s left.
Have six red lipsticks? Ten pink nail polishes? Limit yourself to one of each shade, keeping the one you reach for most often.
Now that you’ve streamlined your stash, organize it. Separate skin-care, hair-care, and makeup items, storing each category in its own place. Patinkin recommends using clear, stackable drawers, which let you easily see and access what you need. We like the variety of drawers and dividers from Boxy Girl (from $39; boxygirl.com). Train cases with pull-out trays are a great space-saving storage solution, adds Patinkin. Try the Caboodles Large Train Case ($99; caboodles.com). Skin-care products containing active ingredients—vitamin C and retinol, in particular—are best stored in a cool, dry place, away from sunlight, which can render those ingredients inactive. So consider keeping those items in a dark spot, like a drawer or closet. If you have a lot of makeup, separate products for face, eyes, and lips, and then organize those according to container size and shape to make everything tidy, recommends Patinkin. Now ensure your stash stays organized by committing to a deep clean twice a year. Do so during a change of seasons, when you’ll probably be switching up your skin care and makeup anyway, says Patinkin. One item to purge more frequently, however: mascara. It should be ditched about every 90 days, since dark, moist environments are breeding grounds for bacteria, and every time you use the tube, you’re contaminating it. (Preservatives in the mascara lose efficacy over time.)
Get rid of everything else.
Resist the urge to dump all your castoffs into a garbage bag and call it a day. Donating unwanted items is a great option—though for hygienic reasons it’s essential that they be unused, says Pam Koner, executive director of Family to Family, a nationwide nonprofit that recently helped launch Share Your Beauty, a beauty donation program. The type of product doesn’t matter; if it’s unused, donate it. “While personal-care products, such as soap and shampoo, may be more critical, makeup items like lipstick and mascara are always wanted as well,” says Koner.
What about the rest? Much of what’s left over can likely be recycled, though it isn’t quite as easy as tossing stuff into your household recycling bin. Not all plastic is created equal, and not all types of plastic are recyclable. Containers made of PET or HDPE plastic can usually be recycled curbside, notes Gina Herrera, the U.S. director of brand partnerships for TerraCycle, a company that helps recycle hard-to-recycle materials. (The plastic type is usually noted on the bottom of the packaging; look for the recycling symbol and a number from 1 to 7.) You can also recycle certain glass packaging—though, as with plastic, it’s important that it be clean and empty. Recycling rules vary greatly based on location, so check to see what types of materials are accepted by your municipality, advises Herrera. This information can usually be found wherever your local trash and recycling schedule is listed.
RELATED: 11 Steps to Better Skin
Caps, pumps, nail polish brushes, fragrance spray tops, and lipstick tubes typically can’t be recycled curbside, says Herrera. Before tossing these materials into the garbage can, ask your retailer if you can bring the packaging back. Companies including Kiehl’s, MAC, and Lush offer programs that reward you for returning empties. Another option: TerraCycle has partnered with the beauty brand Garnier to launch a program that accepts personal-care and beauty waste from any brand. Pile your clean beauty discards in a box, create an account on terracycle.com, print out a prepaid shipping label, and drop off the box at any UPS location. Almost everything is accepted except nail polish, perfume, and aerosols, notes Herrera. Drop those items off at a hazardous-waste facility (the search tool on earth911.com can help you find the one nearest to you) and let the pros dispose of them properly.
Other ways to make your beauty routine more sustainable:
To minimize the beauty trash you produce, simple changes go a long way. Perhaps the biggest offenders are face wipes. They’re great for travel, but for daily use, consider swapping wipes for a washable alternative, like the Croon Starter Fibers ($26; justcroon.com) or Face Halo ($22 for 3; facehalo.com). When makeup shopping, opt for refillable compacts for eye shadow, powder, and blush. Kjaer Weis houses its makeup in pretty, refillable metal compacts—even the mascara casing can be reused. When it comes to skin care, go for items in glass packaging, like Tata Harper’s line. (What little plastic the company does use for its tubes is derived from Brazilian sugarcane.) And keep an eye out for Loop, a new waste-free shopping platform that launches in Paris and the New York City area in May, with plans to expand. Loopstore.com will sell products from major beauty companies (like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and REN Clean Skincare) in glass and stainless-steel containers. When you’ve used them up, send them back to be refilled.
D’Addario is sponsoring Recycle and Restring events in music stores nationwide this April. Players are invited to bring friends, bandmates, and their old strings to participating dealers to recycle and have their strings changed with D’Addario NYXL electric or Nickel Bronze acoustic strings.
D’Addario has been consistently committed to environmental issues for many years, a commitment that’s resulted in a 75 percent reduction in packaging waste since the early 1990s and the most environmentally responsible packaging that is currently on the market.
Since unveiling the Playback program in 2016 with TerraCycle, more than three million strings have been recycled. Our partnership with TerraCycle allows us to create a free, safe and independent way to recycle and upcycle instrument strings. D’Addario will not only be rewarding players for recycling their own strings but will accept all other string brands as well as part of this program. The program is currently only available in the U.S. and is free for any U.S. resident to participate.
By implementing Playback, D’Addario continues to reinforce its role as an environmental leader in the music industry and expands on the company’s goal of creating positive social change while minimizing its environmental footprint.
Playback is also part of D’Addario’s Players Circle loyalty program – once registered, members who recycle strings are rewarded with points, which can be redeemed for new sets of strings, picks, gear, and other accessories. The points can also be used to Play It Forward: members can donate their points to D’Addario’s non-profit organization, the D’Addario Foundation, to help fund music programs in underserved communities.
For more information and a list of events, visit playback.daddario.com
ATLANTA (FOX 5 Atlanta) - According to the EPA, the average American produces close to six pounds of trash a day, and only a fraction of that gets recycled. Here's how you an give those things a second life.
Let's start with cell phones. How many do you have stuffed in a drawer? The EPA, again, says fewer than 20 percent are recycled. If you do it, you can help victims of domestic violence through Cellular Recycler and to help active-duty military and vets through a program called "Cell Phones for Soldiers."
Eyeglasses. I have so many of these lying around because, well, I wear glasses not contaccts. Donate them, non-perscription sunglasses, too, because they go to help folks around the world to see. Check out New Eyes for the Needy, a non-profit with a goal to help the poor see.
Same with hearing aids. My daughter wears one so this interests me. The Starkey Hearing Foundation wants this one when my kid outgrows it. It can go to someone without the resources to buy one.
Running shoes. Nike has a re-use program called Re-Use a Shoe Program that accepts old sneakers to make ball courts.
Inhalers. I have these, too. I usually toss these asthma aids into the garbage. Well, don't. Ask your pharmacist if her pharmacy recycles.
Batteries. Do not throw these things away. Check to see if your office has a program for single-use batteries. Many do. Ours does. Many retailers like Home Depot take the re-useable ones.
A few cosmetics lines want your empties. If you use Lush,Mac, Avedaand Kiehl's, save your pots and containers.
Greeting cards. St. Jude's Ranch for Children takes your new and used ones. They recycle and make new ones. Although, one hiccup: They can't take Hallmark, Disney or American Greetings, according to their website, for copyright reasons.
Finally, those juice pouches and other things that come in pouches. A group called "Terra Cycle" wants them. And cigarette butts, too. Yeah, they make new things from those.
Don't overwhelm yourself. It's like dieting. Just make one small change at a time so that you create a new habit, not a new chore. Start with those pouches for juice and laundry pods. Toss them in a bucket until full then recycle. And before you toss out anything now, take to your keyboard and see if there is a way to re-use it before you put it in the garbage can.
“GREEN PALACE”: Heemin Moon’s installation in the former bank vault at BSB Gallery in Trenton showcases three-dimensional shapes incorporating upcycled materials, including a whimsical view of man’s best friend. It is on display through April 13.
Heemin Moon, in collaboration with Dorothy McNee, has created the site-specific installation “Green Palace,” on display in the former bank vault at BSB Gallery at 143 East State Street in Trenton through April 13.
Heemin Moon’s “Green Palace” is an intimate world of exotic creatures, iridescent lighting, metallic finishes, and sustainable materials. This showcase of three-dimensional shapes, incorporating upcycled materials, is a result of Moon’s unique whimsical view of man’s best friend and unlikely wildlife in regal surroundings. His art and color vision were rendered for the special collaboration between BSB Gallery and TerraCycle, the exhibit “Scrapped.”
Heemin Moon is a graphic artist by trade with a bachelor of fine arts in visual design from Gachon University, Seongnam, South Korea.
Moon’s work has been featured in the auction world of Bid Square, on various book covers, and in projects for private companies. Aside from his daily work, his passion is creating three-dimensional shapes using a variety of recycled materials, including paper, textiles, and plastic. Moon has created a variety of animals in paper and ceramic as well as pen and ink sketches that have been featured in exhibitions all over the world.
Moon has worked closely with International Textiles Sourcing, or I.T.S. GROUP, a textile agency owned by collaborator Dorothy McNee. Aside from marketing environmentally-friendly textiles to retailers and designers, her passion is keeping products from landfills, whether its garments, furniture, or textile remnants.
The “Green Palace” installation was designed specifically for the vault at the BSB Gallery. The inspiration came from the original vault doors and the overall space of this restored 1900s bank building. Moon has incorporated a modern attitude with old world charm, glitz, humor, and his unique animal shapes within a human’s domain.
“Scrapped” runs through April 13 at the BSB Gallery. An Earth Month/Closing Reception will take place on Friday, April 12 from 5 to 7 pm.
Believe it or not, but I do find razors on the beach. What is surprising is the number of items that one finds on the beach, that can be recycled. Recycling Gillette Razors just adds more items that can be kept out of our landfills.
Not common, but enough to make and impact.
BOSTON–Gillette (NYSE:PG), in partnership with international recycling leader TerraCycle, announced for the first-time in the United States that all brands of disposable razors, replaceable-blade cartridge units and razor plastic packaging are recyclable on a national-scale.
Through the innovative partnership consumers are invited to recycle their razors in three ways:
Gillette Razor Recycling Program – Participants wishing to recycle their razors from home are invited to sign up on the program page https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gillette. When ready to ship their waste, they can simply download a self-funded TerraCycle tracking label, package the razors in a secure, puncture-proof package and send it to TerraCycle for recycling.
Gillette Razor Local Recycling Solutions – Businesses, gyms, colleges, cities and community organizations are invited to become public drop-off points for the Gillette Razor Recycling Program. Participants interested in becoming a drop-off point are invited to sign up on the program page https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gillette-local-recycling. After acceptance to the program, they will be sent an exclusive razor recycling bin developed by TerraCycle and Gillette. Once full, they can simply seal and return the bin to TerraCycle via UPS and a new one will be sent back to them. The address listed in the account will be posted on the publicly-available map of local recycling solutions on the Gillette Razor Recycling Program page.
Gillette On Demand Razor Recycling Program – Consumers that participate in the Gillette On Demand subscription service are also invited to recycle their razors through the Gillette Razor Recycling Program. They can sign up on the program page at https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gillette-on-demand; when they are ready to ship their waste, they can simply download a self-funded TerraCycle tracking label, repackage the used razors in the Gillette On Demand delivery box and send it to TerraCycle for recycling.
“Through this innovative, first of its kind program, disposable razors, replaceable-blade cartridge units and their associated packaging are now nationally recyclable through the Gillette Recycling Program,” said TerraCycle CEO and founder Tom Szaky. “We are proud to partner with this forward-thinking company to offer consumers a way to divert razor waste from landfills.”
“We are very excited about our partnership with TerraCycle to offer recycling for Gillette, Venus or any razor brand across the U.S. This is an important first step towards sustainable solutions for shaving products and the start of an exciting journey with Gillette and TerraCycle. We are thrilled to bring this option to our consumers in the U.S. and are already working on plans to rollout to more countries very soon,” said Gillette CEO, Gary Coombe.
Organizations that participate in the Gillette Razor Local Recycling Solutions as a public drop-off location earn money for the waste that they recycle through TerraCycle’s Sponsored Waste Recycling Program. For every shipment weighing at least fifteen pounds, collectors earn points that can be used for charity gifts or converted to cash and donated to charities of their choice. The collected packaging will be recycled into a variety of new consumer products such as park benches, bike racks, pet food bowls and recycling bins.
To learn more about the program, please visit http://www.terracycle.com.
ABOUT GILLETTE
For more than 115 years, Gillette has delivered precision technology and unrivalled product performance – improving the lives of over 800 million consumers around the world. From shaving and body grooming, to skin care and sweat protection, Gillette offers a wide variety of products including razors, shave gel (gels, foams and creams), skin care, after shaves, antiperspirants, deodorants and body wash. For more information and the latest news on Gillette, visit www.gillette.com. To see our full selection of products, visit www.gillette.com. Follow Gillette on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
ABOUT PROCTER & GAMBLE
P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®, Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head & Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®, Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please visit https://www.pg.com/ for the latest news and information about P&G and its brands.
ABOUT TERRACYCLE
TerraCycle is an innovative waste management company with a mission to eliminate the idea of waste®. Operating nationally across 21 countries, TerraCycle partners with leading consumer product companies, retailers, cities, and facilities to recycle products and packages, from dirty diapers to cigarette butts, that would otherwise end up being landfilled or incinerated. In addition, TerraCycle works with leading consumer product companies to integrate hard to recycle waste streams, such as ocean plastic, into their products and packaging. TerraCycle has won over 200 awards for sustainability and has donated over $44 million to schools and charities since its founding 15 years ago. To learn more about TerraCycle or get involved in its recycling programs, please visit www.terracycle.com.
Believe it or not, but I do find razors on the beach. What is surprising is the number of items that one finds on the beach, that can be recycled. Recycling Gillette Razors just adds more items that can be kept out of our landfills.
Not common, but enough to make an impact.
BOSTON–Gillette (NYSE:PG), in partnership with international recycling leader TerraCycle, announced for the first-time in the United States that all brands of disposable razors, replaceable-blade cartridge units and razor plastic packaging are recyclable on a national-scale.
Through the innovative partnership consumers are invited to recycle their razors in three ways:
Gillette Razor Recycling Program – Participants wishing to recycle their razors from home are invited to sign up on the program page https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gillette. When ready to ship their waste, they can simply download a self-funded TerraCycle tracking label, package the razors in a secure, puncture-proof package and send it to TerraCycle for recycling.
Gillette Razor Local Recycling Solutions – Businesses, gyms, colleges, cities and community organizations are invited to become public drop-off points for the Gillette Razor Recycling Program. Participants interested in becoming a drop-off point are invited to sign up on the program page https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gillette-local-recycling. After acceptance to the program, they will be sent an exclusive razor recycling bin developed by TerraCycle and Gillette. Once full, they can simply seal and return the bin to TerraCycle via UPS and a new one will be sent back to them. The address listed in the account will be posted on the publicly-available map of local recycling solutions on the Gillette Razor Recycling Program page.
Gillette On Demand Razor Recycling Program – Consumers that participate in the Gillette On Demand subscription service are also invited to recycle their razors through the Gillette Razor Recycling Program. They can sign up on the program page at https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gillette-on-demand; when they are ready to ship their waste, they can simply download a self-funded TerraCycle tracking label, repackage the used razors in the Gillette On Demand delivery box and send it to TerraCycle for recycling.
“Through this innovative, first of its kind program, disposable razors, replaceable-blade cartridge units and their associated packaging are now nationally recyclable through the Gillette Recycling Program,” said TerraCycle CEO and founder Tom Szaky. “We are proud to partner with this forward-thinking company to offer consumers a way to divert razor waste from landfills.”
“We are very excited about our partnership with TerraCycle to offer recycling for Gillette, Venus or any razor brand across the U.S. This is an important first step towards sustainable solutions for shaving products and the start of an exciting journey with Gillette and TerraCycle. We are thrilled to bring this option to our consumers in the U.S. and are already working on plans to rollout to more countries very soon,” said Gillette CEO, Gary Coombe.
Organizations that participate in the Gillette Razor Local Recycling Solutions as a public drop-off location earn money for the waste that they recycle through TerraCycle’s Sponsored Waste Recycling Program. For every shipment weighing at least fifteen pounds, collectors earn points that can be used for charity gifts or converted to cash and donated to charities of their choice. The collected packaging will be recycled into a variety of new consumer products such as park benches, bike racks, pet food bowls and recycling bins.
To learn more about the program, please visit http://www.terracycle.com.
Figure 1 (above) shows the case where Product V is recycled after being supplied at Time 1. Perhaps the ideal case of reuse is my grandmother’s cast iron frying pan, which already has lasted two generations and could endure for five more. For that skillet, the "recycling" process would be a thorough cleaning and the manufacturing process could be skipped.
Figure 2 (above) shows what happens if Product V supplied at Time 1 is landfilled instead of being recycled. It is clear that there is both a landfill step and a need to obtain virgin material to create the product to be supplied at time 2.
Requiring both products to be included in a single model eliminates the need to split the impacts between them, and clearly shows the change in system-wide impacts. At the same time, it requires a manufacturer to understand the impacts of its products beyond placement in the recycle bin. Is the product really recycled? What is Product R? Is Product R really equivalent to the Product V it replaces?
The goal of circular economy concepts is to help us make the world a better place. Fulfilling that aspiration will require assessment methods that can distinguish good circular economy ideas from bad ones — to answer, for example, the question of whether recycling a particular product in a particular way is actually beneficial.
LCA is a potentially good tool for that but, to date, it has been providing mixed messages. By including both the initial product and the product made from recycled material in our functional unit, we can bring the process into better alignment with circular economy thinking and gain a clearer picture of what’s really happening.
We’re not quite finished with all of this work and thinking. So if you have ideas or a project you want us to work on, please contact us.
“GREEN PALACE”: Heemin Moon’s installation in the former bank vault at BSB Gallery in Trenton showcases three-dimensional shapes incorporating upcycled materials, including a whimsical view of man’s best friend. It is on display through April 13.
Heemin Moon, in collaboration with Dorothy McNee, has created the site-specific installation “Green Palace,” on display in the former bank vault at BSB Gallery at 143 East State Street in Trenton through April 13.
Heemin Moon’s “Green Palace” is an intimate world of exotic creatures, iridescent lighting, metallic finishes, and sustainable materials. This showcase of three-dimensional shapes, incorporating upcycled materials, is a result of Moon’s unique whimsical view of man’s best friend and unlikely wildlife in regal surroundings. His art and color vision were rendered for the special collaboration between BSB Gallery and TerraCycle, the exhibit “Scrapped.”
Heemin Moon is a graphic artist by trade with a bachelor of fine arts in visual design from Gachon University, Seongnam, South Korea.
Moon’s work has been featured in the auction world of Bid Square, on various book covers, and in projects for private companies. Aside from his daily work, his passion is creating three-dimensional shapes using a variety of recycled materials, including paper, textiles, and plastic. Moon has created a variety of animals in paper and ceramic as well as pen and ink sketches that have been featured in exhibitions all over the world.
Moon has worked closely with International Textiles Sourcing, or I.T.S. GROUP, a textile agency owned by collaborator Dorothy McNee. Aside from marketing environmentally-friendly textiles to retailers and designers, her passion is keeping products from landfills, whether its garments, furniture, or textile remnants.
The “Green Palace” installation was designed specifically for the vault at the BSB Gallery. The inspiration came from the original vault doors and the overall space of this restored 1900s bank building. Moon has incorporated a modern attitude with old world charm, glitz, humor, and his unique animal shapes within a human’s domain.
“Scrapped” runs through April 13 at the BSB Gallery. An Earth Month/Closing Reception will take place on Friday, April 12 from 5 to 7 pm.
