The two companies are working together to reduce snack pouch build up in landfills and convert it to money for NPOs.

The beer brand is pushing for customers to use repurposed products and to recycle their beer cans in this summer's promotional campaign The Coors Light marketing team plans to launch a summer promotional campaign called “Every One Can” to encourage customers to recycle and purchase their new sustainable products. Coors will turn its billboards into cooler bags and damaged kegs into barbecue grills to use for in-store displays. Customers will identify the recycled bags with a stamp that reads, “I used to be a billboard”. The company has tasked the help from TerraCycle, a recycling agency who specializes in hard-to-recycle materials. During the summer promotion, Coors will attempt to encourage customers to recycle their beer cans more frequently.

P&G has partnered with TerraCycle and Suez Environmental to create a pipeline for recycled beach fodder Can you hear that? It’s the sound of marine animals rejoicing because Head & Shoulders are now making their shampoo bottles out of beach plastic! Tapping into a new resource for post-consumer material, P&G has created the first recycled shampoo bottle made of 25% beach plastic. 150,000 bottles will roll out this summer in France, which is considered the first and largest distribution of recycled plastic bottles. Beach clean up non-profits and NGOs are helping to supply the pipeline with rigid plastics. The plastics are then processed and developed into a raw material to be used in the bottle production, as a circular effort that includes partners in waste management, non-profits, recyclers and mass market retailing. Typically, it’s cheaper to create new plastic (called virgin plastic) than it is to use recycled plastic, because of the cost associated with processing. However, as partners increase in numbers and technologies become more easily available and scalable, moving forward we’ll likely see an increase in production and use of recycled plastics for every day items.  

If you think materials collected at the curb represent a difficult mix of contaminated plastics, try pulling them off the beach and recycling them. But that’s exactly the challenge TerraCycle and its partners have decided to confront in Europe. Trenton, N.J.-based TerraCycle is managing an entirely new supply chain, one that begins with environmental activists who collect litter from beaches and ends with the sale of recycled-content pellets to one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, which is using them in hair-care product bottles. Over the past two months, TerraCycle has collected 12 tons of beach plastics. That volume is expected to grow in coming months, because most beach cleanups occur during the spring and summer seasons. Brett Stevens, TerraCycle’s vice president of material sales and procurement, and Ernie Simpson, the company’s global vice president of research and development, discussed the challenges and successes of the effort with Plastics Recycling Update. They provided a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work needed to bring the beach plastics into HDPE bottles for Head & Shoulders, a Procter & Gamble (P&G) brand. Stevens will talk about the project during a plenary session focused on marine plastics at the Plastics Recycling 2017 conference. Entitled “A Sea of Challenges,” the session will also include presentations from Stewart Harris of the American Chemistry Council, Ted Siegler of DSM Environmental and Tamsin Ettefagh of Envision Plastics. On the beach It starts where the land meets the sea. On beaches across Europe, a variety of nonprofit organizations are already removing litter as part of environmental preservation efforts. Most of the time, however, litter is thrown into garbage cans. “What TerraCycle is doing is basically contacting these organizations who are doing pick-ups and trying to access the plastics that they are collecting that they would ordinarily be throwing out anyway,” Stevens said. “There’s really no organization too big or too small.” The company, which has a presence in 21 countries, is providing them with the supplies they need to collect and ship the rigid plastics they find. Those could include gaylords or bulk shipping bags. TerraCycle also pays their shipping costs. The recovered mix is shipped to TerraCycle warehouses. TerraCycle has warehouses in each of the European countries where it operates. Stevens said those warehouses aggregate the material. When the piles get big enough, say a couple thousand pounds or kilograms, manual sorting begins. Sorting it out As any sortation facility operator knows, you’re going to get a lot you didn’t ask for. That’s also the case with recovered beach plastics. TerraCycle asks for rigid plastics but will receive contaminants including seaweed, wood, metals, fishing nets, rope and other non-rigid plastics, Stevens said. Manual sorters work to remove obvious contaminants to generate a stream of mixed rigid plastics. The manually sorted rigids are then shipped to a sortation facility run by Suez, a Paris-based water and waste management giant. Last fall, Suez bought shares in TerraCycle’s operations in Belgium, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K. That made them a vested partner and a natural fit for the back-end processing of the beach plastics, Stevens said. TerraCycle pays Suez to sort the plastics by resin using a host of existing technologies. Those include optical and NIR sorters, float-sink tanks, electrostatic separators and air-density separators. The goal is to recover HDPE, but the sortation also yields streams of PET, PP, PS and other resins, Stevens said. “We are recovering all of the other types of resins during that mechanical separation process,” he said. As is the case with HDPE, the other polymers are shredded, washed, and dried. These materials are then extruded into recycled products such as benches and picnic tables, which P&G will be purchasing in order to donate back to collection organizations and beaches. Building a pellet The HDPE regrind travels to a different Suez facility for pelletization and compounding. That plastics reclamation facility is where TerraCycle also ships virgin bottle-grade HDPE and other additives. To ensure the finished pellet meets the manufacturer’s specifications, the plastics are extruded using a proprietary formulation. It’s challenging, because the beach plastics may have incurred damage from the elements, including long exposure to UV radiation. You have to estimate a certain level of degradation in beach plastics, said Simpson. After that, the trick becomes rebuilding the plastic’s properties to meet bottle manufacturer specifications. “The real key is to make sure that you’re able to build the properties to the proper quality so it can be used in the final end product and to also make sure that the material is clean enough to be used in the end product as well,” he said. The pellets contain additives to counteract degradation, kill bacteria and otherwise ensure they’re stable and able to pass safety tests. “I like to draw the parallel between this and cooking: If you are following a recipe and all of a sudden you make your dish too spicy … what can you add to your dish to counteract that?” Stevens said. Before the pellets are supplied to the bottle maker, a third-party tests them to make sure they don’t contain anything hazardous to humans. The partner companies also take steps to ensure the finished pellets contain the required percentage of beach plastics: The processing lines are given a full cleanout before the beach plastic materials are run through the system, and TerraCycle and P&G send representatives to supervise processing through to pellets. The finished bottle TerraCycle supplies the finished beach plastic pellets to P&G’s bottle manufacturer in Europe. This company blends the beach plastic pellets with its own HDPE before blow-molding the mix into a finished bottle. The result is a gray-colored shampoo bottle containing 25 percent recycled beach plastic. Other companies have tried using beach plastics in bottles before. The differences were they included lower recycled content levels, Stevens said, and they weren’t easily recyclable. In one instance, for example, the finished bottle was black, making it difficult to sort. The pellets made with beach plastics cost more than virgin HDPE pellets, Stevens said, but the real value is in the story the material is able to tell. That story — and the uniqueness of the product — can help P&G secure more retail shelf space. The first 150,000 limited-edition Head & Shoulders bottles with beach plastics will be sold this summer at Carrefour, a worldwide retailer headquartered in France. “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 Head & Shoulders and global hair care sustainability leader for P&G, stated in a press release. “We’ve been fortunate to work with such great partners in TerraCycle and Suez to make this vision a reality.”  

As soon as my kids walk in the door from school, they are immediately starving! After a busy day at school and with dinnertime still a couple of hours away I love when I can find quick yummy snacks. Entenmann’s® Little Bites® are the perfect pre-portioned pouches of delicious baked snacks. I love that because they are pre-portioned with four little muffins my kids can quickly grab a bag after school while they start homework and I start dinner prep.   Entenmann’s® Little Bites® has partnered with TerraCycle®, an international recycling company that turns waste into plastic that will be used for products such as park benches, recycling bins, and playgrounds. This is a free recycling program!   After your kids have enjoyed their snack, they can learn about recycling by collecting their pouches. Then you ship the pouches to TerraCycle® for processing using a pre-paid shipping label. So easy and such a great way to teach kids all about how important recycling is and how it works. Now through March TerraCycle® and Entenmann’s® Little Bites® will reward you for making eco-friendly habits by Making the Pledge. By collecting Entenmann’s® Little Bites® pouches on behalf of a K-12 school, you could be placed in the running to win a Classroom Party. It’s easy to participate and is open to everyone, all schools; organizations may take part. All you have to do is make the pledge, send in the waste, and earn more rewards. How to Win 1. Pledge: your pledge qualifies you for the contest 2. First Shipment: your first shipment over 5 lbs. earns 100 bonus points 3. Second Shipment: your second shipment over 5 lbs. earns three (3) exclusive coupons for free Entenmann’s® Little Bites® and three (3) Entenmann’s® Little Bites® plush dogs 4. TerraCycleSweepstakes: K-12 schools-only have the chance to win a Classroom Party as long as they pledge. The classroom party will include thirty (30) boxes of Entenmann’s® Little Bites® and 30 Entenmann’s® Little Bites® reusable water bottles. Please see more details and official rules here: http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/contests/little-bites-pledge

When it comes to the snacks I enjoy, I find that I have quite a sweet tooth, and when I add the sweet mini cakes from the Entenmann’s® Little Bites® line up, I can enjoy those sweet snacks without having to worry about those large amounts of calories that can come with the majority of sweets. Well along with the Little Bites that we enjoy in my home, I also like that right now through March 31st, when I head to the store to stock up on those sweet treats I adore, I can also help my kids K-12 school for recycling the bags! I was told about this amazing initiative through a campaign with TerraCycle® and Entenmann’s® Little Bites®, and after hearing about it, I was not only excited to get started in my own home but also share it with you, my readers!   See with TerraCycle®, you get a recycling company who turns that waste into plastic that can be then used to make park benches, playgrounds, recycling bins and more! And with this amazing initiative, I can take those empty pouches of the Entenmann’s® Little Bites® after myself and my family have eaten the treats inside and be rewarded for making a eco-friendly pledge. The pledge is simple too. All I have to do is collect and send in the bags after we have used them, and even earn rewards! I also like learning from the video below, that I can even recycle the boxes and turn them into useful organizers for my home.   Then with my kids class, when we as a whole make the pledge and send in our waste, we can then enter our kids class in a random drawing to win a Classroom Party! The Classroom Party is a fun way to get the kids excited to start saving those bags as well as encourage the community to help out as well. Making this initiative that will not only benefit the community, but also help to encourage others to take a eco-friendly pledge so together we can all make a difference! And to help with taking that first step in making your own eco-friendly pledge with Entenmann’s® Little Bites® and TerraCycle®, the wonderful people from Entenmann’s® would like to give one of my amazing readers 3 coupons, each valid for $5.00 off the purchase of any Entenmann’s® Little Bites® and a $25 Visa gift card to use purchase additional Entenmann’s® Little Bites®!

Almost everyone knows about recycling paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, plastic bottles and glass. But, what about those potato chip bags, energy bars wrappers, toothpaste tubes and cereal bags? Ask a student at Winnequah School, and you’ll find the answer – recycling those items can mean good money for the school. “We’ve exceeded $1,000 earned for the school through TerraCycle,” said Kathryn Christopherson, parent volunteer organizer. “We did it four years prior to this current year. We raised only $30 the first year, but we were at almost $800 last year.” Money raised through the program is used for a variety of items, from books to microscopes. This is the fifth year for the project. About 1,800 pounds of material has been collected since the beginning. “We’re more than halfway to our weight total from last year (which runs from Sept. 1 through Aug. 31),” Christopherson said. Containers are set up for individual items, but a small group of parent volunteers still needs to meet to sort items. There are five bins at school and 11 at the Monona Public Library. Sally Buffat, interim director at the public library, said the library’s participation is another way to connect with the community. “It helps us partner with the community,” she said. “The space in our cafeteria wasn’t really being used, and this was a great way to use it.” Buffat also said the use of the library as a collection point provides more promotion of the recycling effort with other parts of the community, not just the schools. “The community really comes out for this,” she said. “Monona is really great at this.” There is also a bin at Cousins Subs for potato chip bags. “Our students are having fun and really getting into it,” said Principal Angie Fassl. Parents aren’t the only ones who help collect and sort, though. “Twice a month, some fifth graders help with the boxes and go to the kindergarten rooms to collect the items. It offers them another leadership opportunity,” said Barb Nyenhuis, fifth-grade teacher. Some students even give up their recess to volunteer, she said. “Kids get excited about their role,” Fassl said. Once sorted, items are boxed and shipped to TerraCycle in New Jersey, where they are upcycled or recycled. Each box must weigh at least 14 pounds, but Christopherson said boxes of at least 50 pounds earn the school double points. “There is no way we could do this without the support of everyone,” she said. Nyenhuis said it’s important to remember that not only is this material recycled, it’s stuff that’s not going into the landfills. How much has been saved from the trash? Christopherson said shipments have thus far included 31,800 potato chip bags (420 pounds); 37,500 (75 pounds) of granola or energy bar wrappers; 20,354 (228 pounds) juice pouches; 10,524 (337 pounds) of fruit and veggie pouches; and 6,884 (174 pounds) cereal bags.

Not just another day at the beach for plastics packaging February 02, 2017 It turns out that one man’s water-borne trashed bottle is another’s packaging. Or his beach shorts. Surf’s up, and it’s bringing in more waste as these diverse possibilities point to marine-borne trash as a modern-day watery feedstock. Once reclaimed, the discarded plastics can be converted into like-new products and packaging. Opportunistic entrepreneurs are already turning the tide on beached trash. In fact, Tide (ironically) manufacturer Procter & Gamble announced last week that Head & Shoulders, the world’s #1 shampoo brand, would produce the world’s first recyclable shampoo bottle made from up to 25% recycled beach plastic. Also involved in the project are recycling experts SUEZ and TerraCycle. In addition to the technical innovation this represents, the initiative’s backing by a global brand owner for a major established product created quite a splash throughout social channels and media outlets. Watershed event? For an insider view of P&G's groundbreaking development, you can read this insightful article writtenpublished at the website of sister publication PackagingDigest.com. Author Tom Szaky, TerraCycle CEO, sees this development as a watershed moment in the “new plastics economy.”