If branding is all about telling a story, generic post-consumer recycled content may be lacking in that department. Sourced from recycled material suppliers selling resins aggregated from one or many municipal recycling facilities, generic recycled materials (that is “rPET” or “rHDPE”) contain plastic from many different types of products and packaging, come from any number of places and have no traceability back to the original product or where the material was generated or collected. Identifying the key values that drive significance with customers and consumers is a huge factor in crafting a narrative. Many companies branding for sustainability have publicly stated goals and have made commitments to increase the amount of post-consumer recycled (PCR) resins in their product packaging. This is because one of the most important factors consumers cite in their selection of eco-friendly products is the use of recycled content.

The plastic waste accumulated in oceans is like something out of a horror movie. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), 95% of the value of plastic packaging material, worth $80-120 billion annually, is lost to the economy and on the current track, there could be more plastics than fish in the ocean (by weight) by 2050. With such a huge problem to address, it calls for some creativity and innovation, which is how ‘beach plastic’ came to be. Earlier this year, P&G gained worldwide headlines when it announced that its Head & Shoulders brand will produce the world’s first recyclable shampoo bottle made from up to 25% recycled beach plastic. I first covered the announcement back in January and since then have interviewed reps from P&G and their recycling partner, TerraCycle. In addition, in February, my colleague Tony Deligio and I traveled to San Diego to interview a beach cleanup organization, a key component in this whole initiative. And that’s where the beach plastic story begins.

Americans have a one-track mind when it comes to our trash. We want it out of sight and out of mind—as soon as possible. As "stuff" has evolved to address our demands for convenience, particularly in the food and beverage industry, we've started to perceive everything we buy as disposable. The average person now generates 4.3 pounds of waste per day, with 55 percent of it ending up in landfills. If that isn't a sign that a bit of holistic thinking is in order, I don't know what is. Before you toss your waste in the trash bin, here are some simple questions to ask yourself:  1. Why is it trash?  Let’s say you ripped a small hole in your T-shirt—would you try to mend it, upcycle it, resell it, donate it, or throw it in the trash? At what point does a product and its packaging become waste in the first place? The answer is actually a matter of perspective. It becomes easy to look at objects as disposable when they can be easily replaced with new, mass-produced, relatively inexpensive goods. Living a more zero-waste existence starts with taking a tip from nature and looking at "waste" as a potentially valuable material.  2. What material is it made of? Identifying the materials in your trash is the first step in figuring out how to dispose of them in a more responsible way. According to the EPA, about 28 percent of the solid waste stream in the United States consists of food waste and yard trimmings. These can be composted to divert material from landfills and prevent the generation of methane and other greenhouse gasses. Paying attention to what metals, plastics, paper, and glass materials are in your bin is important, too, which leads me to my next question.  3. Can it be recycled? Everything is technically recyclable, but an item is considered highly recyclable when most public recycling systems accept it. Research your town's or city's recycling system and find out what it accepts before you throw anything out that could easily be returned to be repurposed. For example, some states have mandated recycling initiatives on plastic bags. The shelf-stable and refrigerated cartons that hold soups, milk, and juice are now recyclable in some communities too. There are ways to responsibly deal with items that are not accepted curbside or through a public system, too. My company, TerraCycle's free, brand-sponsored recycling programs can solve for unexpectedly recyclable items like used toothbrushes and old toys. We also have turnkey recycling boxes for you eco-warriors who want to recycle everything from coffee capsules to the contents of your bathroom.  4. Does it have waste on it? Once you decide to recycle an item, you need to make sure that it isn't covered in food or other types of waste, as this can interfere with the recycling process. For example, cardboard pizza boxes soiled with grease and food remnants are not recyclable until you remove the tainted portions. When paper products, like cardboard, are recycled, they are mixed with water and turned into a slurry. And water and oil just don’t mix. Do your best to scrape all the solid food scraps out of jars and cans before putting them in the bin, but keep in mind that small amounts of food don’t interfere with the glass, steel, and aluminum recycling processes, as those materials are recycled using heat.  5. Can you hold on to it until a solution is available?  Have you ever noticed now many public areas like parks, train platforms, and street corners don’t have recycling bins? It’s easy to toss your waste into the nearest trash bin when the alternative is littering, but holding on to your recyclables until you are able to place them in your blue bin at home or the nearest public recycling drop-off is a significant way to divert these items from landfills. Thinking of all trash as having a place within the recycling system helps us align our human consumption with nature and promote a more sustainable world. Let's get started!

East Amwell Township School is competing to win a playground made from recycled oral care waste through the fourth annual Recycled Playground Challenge, courtesy of Colgate-Palmolive (“Colgate”), the global oral care leader; ShopRite, which has more than 260 stores in the Northeast; and recycling p ioneer TerraCycle. East Amwell Township School will earn one (1) ‘Playground Credit’ for each unit  (“unit” definedas 0.02 lbs of used, post-consumer oral care products and packaging) of oral care waste, such as empty toothpaste tubes and floss containers, sent to TerraCycle for recycling. An additional credit is earned for every online vote cast for the school at www.terracycle.com/colgateshopriteplayground2017 before June 30, 2017. The grand prize playground will be made from recycled oral care waste collected through the Colgate® Oral Care Recycling Program, a free, national program operated by Colgate and TerraCycle. Full set of rules for the 2017 “Recycled Playground Challenge” can be viewed: www.terracycle.com/colgateshopriteplayground2017 “Students in grades pre-school through 8 collect materials at home, in their classrooms and even in extra-curricular after school activities because they are so committed to helping the Earth by giving everyday trash another life at TerraCycle,” said Sharon Ernst, 5th grade teacher at East Amwell Township School. “Throughout the community there are collections at the Municipal Building and various businesses, as well!” This year’s Recycled Playground Challenge launched March 12, 2017 among schools throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut and Maryland that participate in the Colgate Oral Care Recycling Program. East Amwell Township School has diverted 764,000 pieces of waste through TerraCycle so far.  Ms. Ernst continued, “TerraCycle and the participating recycling programs for the collections have helped us to afford compost bins, native plants for butterflies and birds, gardening tools for the students, bleachers, a green house, etc. We could really use any votes that the community can give to us. We would love to win, to show that collecting makes a difference in the community.” The Colgate Oral Care Recycling Program is an ongoing activity, open to any individual, family, school or community group.  For each piece of waste sent in using a pre-paid shipping label, participants earn money toward donations to the school or charity of their choice.  To learn more about the program, please visit www.terracycle.com/colgate.

Tom Szaky is a man with a mission to eliminate waste. Parvati Magazine caught up with him this month to inquire about some of the innovative ways he collects and repurposes hard-to-recycle waste through his global company TerraCycle. Parvati Magazine: Individuals, schools and offices in 20 countries send TerraCycle their hard-to-recycle waste, and you have it made into cool stuff! At this time, which of your products are you excited about? Tom Szaky: I am excited about an announcement we recently made with Procter & Gamble to manufacture the world’s first recyclable shampoo bottle made from beach plastic, for the Head & Shoulders brand. The first bottles will be on store shelves in France in early summer. PMAG: You were 19 years old being laughed at and turned away as you pitched your business idea for worm-poop fertilizer in recycled bottles. What in your life prepared you to be the young man who kept persisting? TS: I think emigrating with my parents from Hungary when I was a child. After tremendous political instability, we went from Hungary to Belgium to the Netherlands and then to Canada where I grew up. My parents were respected physicians in Hungary but had to redo all of their training to practice medicine in Canada. In high school, some of my friends’ parents were entrepreneurs, starting with nothing but accomplishing amazing things. When I saw that, I felt like a whole new world was at my feet and knew I could drive my own success. PMAG: It seems that TerraCycle shines a light on hard-to-recycle waste. Have there been alternatives or packaging changes as a result? TS: There are companies, many of whom we work with, who are trying to be as responsible as possible about their packaging on the front and back end. I like being part of the discussion as to how we can affect change, either by finding a solution for a huge problem, like recycling cigarette butts, or giving consumers a way to be part of the solution, as with the Head & Shoulders shampoo bottle. Consumers can make a conscious decision to support the initiative by buying a bottle made with beach plastic and recycling it when it’s empty. PMAG: The more successful your business is, the better it is for the global community! What can you say about that? TS: I think it’s great. There are a lot of people out there who want to operate more sustainably, whether it’s corporately by making packaging changes on the front end and providing a way to recycle on the back end, or the people who recycle with us through their homes, schools and offices. PMAG: This seems like high-energy work. How do you find your personal rhythm among the ideas, people, meetings, juice wrappers and graffiti walls? TS: I’m a high-energy person! I love my job and coming to work and interacting with our staff and partners. Our offices are reflections of our people and our business and I think it helps stimulate creative thinking. PMAG: As we’re focusing on the value of laughter this month, can you tell us if you think laughter is important in the workplace and why? How do you foster laughter ringing through the halls of TerraCycle on any given day? TS: Laughter is definitely important in the workplace. The office can be a very intense environment and laughing at yourself and with your colleagues is helpful to relieve stress and generate camaraderie with your team.

3 Methods for Creating Ingenious Products From Recycled Plastic Plastic waste is a global catastrophe. The most recent data estimates that up to 12 million metric tons of plastic enter our oceans every year. And only about 10 percent of plastic worldwide is recycled through conventional channels. While it’s important to begin using less plastic, we still need to find ways to deal with our existing waste. The three companies below have created ground-breaking methods for turning plastic into products.

Whether you're a beauty junkie or just appreciate a good lipstick, here's another reason to celebrate your favorite makeup brand! Here are six beauty brands that encourage and will even reward you for recycling old packaging. 3. Garnier This beauty brand will donate two cents (to the charity of your choosing) for every empty bottle you send back. Bonus: It's free to ship! Garnier skin care, hair care and cosmetic packaging with a TerraCycle logo are all eligible for this offer.

Whether you're a beauty junkie or just appreciate a good lipstick, here's another reason to celebrate your favorite makeup brand! Here are six beauty brands that encourage and will even reward you for recycling old packaging. 3. Garnier This beauty brand will donate two cents (to the charity of your choosing) for every empty bottle you send back. Bonus: It's free to ship! Garnier skin care, hair care and cosmetic packaging with a TerraCycle logo are all eligible for this offer.

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. That’s the sort of mentality that produced an awesome playground at a Newark school.   The new jungle gym and playground at the Fourteenth Avenue School in Newark is made from recycled toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes, although you’d never know by looking at it. Visually indistinguishable from a “new” product, the innovative effort is a sign that the community is thinking of ways to breathe life into hard-to-recycle waste. A collaborative effort between ShopRite, Colgate and recycling company TerraCycle, the playground will give local kids a safe – and inspirational – place to play for years to come, the project’s organizers stated.

The next phase of the plastics economy will mean going around in circles—but in a good way. The "new plastics economy" will require rethinking all aspects of the plastics supply chain, both pre- and post-consumer, so that more kinds of material can be brought into a truly circular economy. That's one of the points Rick Zultner, director of process and product development at TerraCycle, will be making at "Understanding and Succeeding in The New Plastics Economy," a keynote panel discussion at PackEx Toronto, to be held May 16-18 at the Toronto (Ontario) Congress Centre. His fellow panelist will be Leonore Adams, safety, environment, and sustainability manager at Amcor Ltd., and the session will be moderated by Norbert Sparrow, editor in chief of PlasticsToday. Zultner talked with Packaging Digest about the new plastics economy and what it means for recyclers like TerraCycle.   What do you understand “the new plastics economy” to be? In what ways does it differ from the “old” plastics economy? Zultner: I understand the "new" plastics economy to be the pursuit and development of a circular economy for all plastic materials, and better material efficiency. It is an evolution of the "old" plastic economy, with longer term environmental considerations and lifecycle thinking applied. I would characterize the "old" plastics economy as the development and expansion of plastic products. Where the old plastics economy expanded consumers’ access to products that might have been too expensive or impossible with previous materials, the new plastics economy seeks to minimize the environmental impacts associated with the production, consumption and disposal of those products.   What are the sorts of decisions/changes with regard to plastic packaging that can make a difference in the new plastics economy? Zultner: Use more systems and lifecycle thinking in packaging design, and optimize packaging as part of a much bigger material and consumer system. We already have design guides to support rigid plastic packaging, but we are in the beginning stages of developing that system for more complex and harder-to-recycle materials. For the near term, we can still use some general rules: packaging should be designed for recyclability, use recycled material and clearly communicate how to be properly recycled. Implementing those three ideas simplifies recycling for consumers, and supports the recycled material markets at the same time. Longer-term, I would expect that packaging design will have a more integrated approach. We will probably see more specific design standards and material standards to reduce the variety of new packaging formats and materials. Labeling will likely be standardized to make the consumer’s experience with the packaging and product end-of-life easier.