Did you know? Normally, used blister packs, top foil and contact lenses are not recyclable locally. Usually they are filtered out and sent to landfills instead. But if you're a wearer, there's great news: The new Bausch + Lomb #OneByOne recycling program lets you recycle your used lenses, blister packs and top foil, free of charge. And that's true whether you wear Bausch + Lomb Biotrue Oneday lenses, other Bausch + Lomb brands or any other contact lens brand. If keeping Mother Earth cleaner isn't enough motivation for you, for all recycled materials received, Bausch + Lomb is donating to the eye care charitable organization Optometry Giving Sight. The program was developed in partnership with TerraCycle, a company that collects and repurposes hard-to-recycle post-consumer waste. How does it work? Simply place your used blister packs, top foil and contact lenses into a small cardboard box. When the box is full, print a free One by One shipping label, available at BauschRecycles.com. Take the box to a UPS location or ship it from your home or office. That's all you have to do! (Note: Don't include the outer boxes of your contact lens packaging. These can be placed with other cardboard that you normally recycle locally.)

Have you ever wondered what happens to the things you toss into your recycle bin every week? It’s a habit many of us do without even thinking about ever since many communities have adopted curbside recycling programs. But have you ever stopped to think about the impact each item has and exactly what they do with it? Once it’s gone we have no idea about its usefulness or it’s overall impact on the environment. I believe in reducing waste from the outset, but sometimes you can’t avoid it. This is why recycling is so important for our environment. We recycle a lot of containers, boxes, and plastic, especially in our kitchen, but one of our biggest items that I have always wondered if they could even be recycled are dog food bags. Well, it turns out you can. And not only can you recycle a Wellness dog food bag, you can help support your favorite charity when you do. Wellness Recycle Program Wellness is dedicated to long-term sustainability to support our planet. Their Wellness Recycle Program is a partnership with TerraCycle^®. In fact, Wellness is the first US-based pet food company to partner with TerraCycle. How it works: Any person, organization or school can register for free with TerraCycle. Once you are registered, simply enroll in the Wellness Recycle Program. You can recycle any Wellness^® TruFood^®, CORE^®, and Complete Health^® packaging through the program. From there you can request a shipping label to ship your empty pet food packaging to TerraCycle (it’s free). Once received, the packaging is shredded and melted into hard plastic that is then remolded to make new recycled products. This helps eliminate waste and for every shipment over 2 lbs that you send in, you will receive TerraCycle points that can be redeemed for charitable gifts, product bundles or converted to cash that you can donate to a school or non-profit of your choice. Each lb of waste is equal to 100 TerraPoints. How cool is that? Join the Wellness Recycle Program and help eliminate waste while supporting your local school or favorite charity.

E-commerce and online shopping have revolutionized consumer retail. Having long moved beyond the initial desktop websites of yore, online shipping is now enabled by dynamic mobile apps, cross-platform plug-ins and even text message ordering systems, and has forever altered the way consumers interact with products and services. This is especially evidenced around the holidays, when gifting, entertaining and stocking up puts purchases at the year’s high. In the U.S., November and December drive 30% more e-commerce revenue than non-holiday months, and the days from Black Friday through Christmas pull in 50-100% more revenue than shopping days throughout the rest of the year. So it may not be a coincidence that household waste jumps 25% during the holidays.

What’s the Problem with Online Shopping?

For all its innovation, online shopping has created a great increase of cardboard and plastic packaging waste. From the big box e-commerce sites like Amazon to the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) artisan networks like Etsy, items purchased online are habitually over-packaged (as are most products today, for that matter) and single orders are delivered in separate parcels. Excessive packaging is one of the most preventable sources of waste, and most of it ends up in the landfill. There are quite a few things you can do to incorporate sustainability into your online holiday shopping. The first rung on the waste hierarchy (which is shaped a bit like a Christmas tree), is prevention. Cutting out online shopping and preventing waste by either shopping directly with vendors in-person (and bringing your own shopping bag) or making the pledge to celebrate the holiday without buying new things are simple, doable options for prioritizing sustainability this time of year.

Tips for Shopping Sustainably Online

If you absolutely must online shop (and can’t forego making seasonal purchases, for that matter), making thoughtful reuse of product and packaging waste incurred through online shopping may make a real dent in that 25% increase in holiday waste. To offset the packaging included in your online deliveries, wrap your gifts with stylish stuff you already have. According to the CDC, if every American family wrapped just 3 presents in reused materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. Plastic air packs now frequently replace Styrofoam packaging peanuts in the boxes that dwarf the products they contain. Though voluminous, and dangerous if they end up in landfills, these items can be dropped off at packing and shipping stores that otherwise purchase these items for their own packaging service. Call your local shipping store and see if they are interested in your usable plastic packs; just make sure there’s still air in them. Same goes for bubble wrap. If your plastic air packs or bubble wrap sheets have popped, many of these can be recycled wherever plastic shopping bags are accepted. This does not mean through curbside! Most municipal curbside recycling programs do not accept plastic bags of any type (including retail shopping bags). For many of us, the most viable solutions for plastic bag (and plastic delivery packaging) are as simple as a trip to the supermarket. Most cardboard and paper is highly recyclable (all waste is technically recyclable, but we digress), so feeding those materials back into the product system is relatively easy. As for the other types of plastic packaging that accompany online deliveries and products themselves, there are options available.

Become a more Engaged Consumer

TerraCycle’s Plastic Packaging Zero Waste Bag is a recycling solution for common, traditionally non-recyclable flexible or rigid plastic packaging when municipal recycling options and other initiatives are insufficient. Appropriate to manage waste overflow from online shopping, holiday festivities, or life in general, consumers can fill the bag with mixed items such as Styrofoam peanuts, ingredients packaging, tissue paper packaging, shrink wrap and more. To make online shopping more sustainable at the source, you the consumer can put pressure on companies to reduce their environmental impact and “go green.” Moving away from excessive packaging doesn’t have to undermine convenience or the ability to maintain product integrity. Consumers already have voiced their discontent with the exorbitant amount of packaging waste created by seemingly nonsensical packaging practices. Yet, they continue to demand the convenience of products transported with unsustainable packaging practices. Simple, powerful solutions for reducing packaging waste lie in companies finding more efficient ways to meet consumer demands. But in the meantime, being more mindful of the ways you can reduce your own environmental footprint is important. The more people like you participate in energy-saving waste reduction activities, the closer we’ll be to a sustainable, peaceful Earth.

Did you know that Wellness was the first pet food company to partner with TerraCycle® in the U.S.?  This program encourages pet parents, schools and organizations to mail their empty Wellness pet food packaging free of charge and earn gifts or cash for their favorite non-profit or school! Good nutrition for the pets we love while being kind to environment…what could be better? Recycling in partnership with Wellness® Natural Pet Food TerraCycle® and Wellness® have partnered to create a free recycling program for Wellness® flexible plastic pet food packaging, as well as a fundraising opportunity for participants. What you can recycle: We currently are able to accept dry food packaging from the following Wellness dog and cat recipe lines: 1. Wellness^® Complete Health^™ and Wellness^® Complete Health^™ Grain Free dry food packaging, 2. Wellness^® CORE dry food packaging, 3. Wellness^® TruFood^® Baked Blends dry food packaging. About the Wellness Recycle Program: At Wellness, we are dedicated to long-term sustainability by embracing and supporting recycling efforts. We have partnered with upcycle and recycle leader TerraCycle® to help eliminate waste and give you the opportunity to donate to your favorite school or nonprofit organization. Organizations, schools or individuals can sign up for the Wellness Recycling Program through the TerraCycle® website.

The personal and beauty care industry is one of the most resilient market segments in terms of growth and overall stability. Faring well and even showing growth in periods of economic decline, cosmetics and consumer staples (shampoo, body wash, hair care, etc.) are what some investors call recession resistant industries; from 2009 to 2010, the overall hair care market grew 2.3%,with shipments of hair care products reaching $1.9 billion. Fast forward five years. Beauty care generated $56.2 billion in the US last year; hair care is currently the largest segment, skin care a close second. If periods of recession and tighter spending have a uniquely positive effect on personal care and beauty sales, in today’s climate of incomes rising per capita, business is now booming. And in this highly competitive marketplace, adding value and differentiating offerings is a real challenge. As with most industries today, one of the category’s fastest growing influences on consumer purchasing behavior are claims for sustainability. Sustainable sourcing of raw materials in cosmetics is gaining popularity, and many cosmetics manufacturers have launched “take-back” recycling initiatives, engaging customers with a solution for its difficult-to-recycle products and packaging. The trend we are seeing is clear: recyclability and perceived sustainability are en vogue. Recycling is one of the most easily understood and accessible aspects of sustainability to the average consumer, and a majority of personal care and beauty packaging, though all technically recyclable, is considered “difficult-to-recycle” because it is not profitable in the current infrastructure. Cosmetics are often packaged in containers that are hard to clean, and the packaging is often comprised of mixed materials (e.g. a pump-action bottle made with different plastic resins and a metal spring). With high collection, separation, and processing costs, cheap, linear disposal methods like landfilling and incineration are typically considered the most economically viable options. Even so, consumer demand for greater responsibility and more circular waste solutions is resonating across industries, cosmetics included. One example of a company that is offering a regenerative solution for “difficult-to-recycle” personal care and beauty packaging is Garnier. In partnership with my company TerraCycle, Garnier’s Personal Care and Beauty Recycling Programis a free consumer program that accepts everything from shampoo and conditioner bottles, eye cream tubs and hair spray pumps for recycling. To enhance impact, the program itself is brand agnostic: all personal care and beauty waste is accepted for recycling, regardless of brand. The demand for recycling options for cosmetic and beauty care products is recognized around the globe. Back in May, L’Oreal launched the VICHY Recycling Program with TerraCycle in Austria to recycle all VICHY products. In collaboration with participating pharmacies all over the country, customers can bring in their empty VICHY items to get loyalty points stamped in a “recycling passport” and receive a free gift after six are collected. TerraCycle also recently launched the Beauty Products Recycling Program with L’Oreal in Australia, where 21.1 million tons of waste end up in landfills each year; consumers are empowered by the ability to easily (and at no cost to them) send their discarded beauty products for recycling, and can even earn points redeemable for a charitable donation or upcycled products. We know that consumers are more likely to patronize companies committed to making positive social and environmental impacts, so it’s no wonder that we are seeing an influx of marketing and advertising campaigns using sustainability as a platform to enhance their CSR strategies, reduce their environmental impact, and build trust with consumers. But because sustainability and recycling are more salient topics in the highly discerning consumer products market today, adding the sort of value that distinguishes a product from competitors requires transparency and authentic environmental benefit. Consumers vote for products with their wallets, and when companies provide the resources necessary to make solutions possible, consumers have the influence to reward them.

Did you know that Wellness was the first pet food company that took the initiative to fight to keep their packing from ending up in landfills? They are! They reached out to TerraCycle^® and came up with a free program that gives pet parents, organization, and schools a monetary incentive to mail empty Wellness pet food packaging at no cost to them and in return, they can earn cash or gifts for their favorite school or non-profit! Yes, they get paid for sending what would typically end up as trash, so everyone wins! For each pound of waste that is sent in, you’ll receive 100 TerraCycle points. They currently accept any Wellness® Complete Health™ and Wellness® Complete Health™ Grain Free dry food packaging, Wellness® CORE dry food packaging, and Wellness® TruFood® Baked Blends dry food packaging. Earn Cash for Your School or Organization This program would make an excellent classroom or schoolwide project!  Or, get together your dog club members, or other community group and sign up.  The rewards can let you help others just by recycling. While your pet is enjoying the health benefits of eating Wellness which is packed with natural ingredients, super nutrients, better nutrition and conscious ingredient sourcing, you’ll profit by recycling through the TerraCycle program! Plus, you’ll see the signs of true pet health and wellbeing in your pet as well with softer fur and healthier teeth. Pets love the hearty animal proteins including beef and salmon. My girls are eating lamb, and it seems to be suiting them well. It’s also grain-free and has healthy carbs, so they’re spoiled by the full-flavors of the high-quality proteins in their food.

Recycling partnership to last ‘indefinitely’ Benches are a place to rest your butt. But what about a bench made out of butts? Cigarette butts, that is. Downtown Whitewater, Inc. has partnered with Terracycle, a non-profit organization based in New Jersey, to conduct an ongoing project in which cigarette butts are recycled into fiberglass and plastic materials to be reused for various projects, including creating park benches, recycling containers and playground equipment. “The city’s been wanting to do something for a while that would really encourage people to use a uniform receptacle downtown to prevent cigarette butts from ending up on the ground,” Director of Downtown Whitewater, Inc. Courtney Nelson said. Terracycle shipped several receptacles to Downtown Whitewater, Inc., which will be used to collect cigarette butts. When the holders become full, they will be shipped to the Terracycle facility, where the company will break down the cigarette filters and form them into fiberglass. The process of recycling the cigarette butts in various products is completed in three steps: Sterilization under special circumstances: In cases where cigarette waste is collected from a location with a high risk of contamination; the cigarette waste is sterilized using gamma radiation and tested for bacteria in the waste. Shredding and separation: In which cigarette waste is shredded and separated into organic and non-organic waste components. The organic waste is the tobacco, paper and ash, and the non-organic waste is the cigarette filter and packaging. Solution: Organic waste is sent to tobacco composting facilities. The non-organic waste is blended with other recycled material and pelletized to be used to create various recycled plastic products. Reducing landfill waste Volunteers and members of Downtown Whitewater, Inc. collected more than 18 pounds of cigarette butts off the ground around  city of Whitewater between April and November, Nelson said. Terracycle pays $1 to its partners for every full container of cigarette butts. Nelson said all funds gained through this project will be used to fund other green energy projects in the Whitewater community.   “It’s not a lot of money, but we’re getting funds from something that would otherwise go into a landfill,” Nelson said. “So it seems like a win-win for everybody.” Terracycle public affairs specialist Lauren Taylor said the organization was originally founded in 2001 as fertilizing company to reuse farm waste. Terracycle is partnered with 25 cities in the U.S., including Baltimore, Maryland, New Orleans, Louisiana, St. Louis, Missoui and Portland, Oregon. “For anybody who wants to try to keep waste out of a landfill, we want to be there to help with that process,” Taylor said. “We’d like to continue to grow to keep the value of resources to be reused, and we want to keep waste out of the environment.” A long-term partnership On how long the “The Butts to Benches” campaign will last, “the answer is indefinitely, Nelson said. The receptacles downtown are here to stay. “The canisters are permanent,” Nelson said. “We’ll keep sending cigarette butts for as long as Terracycle will accept them. We’re looking at this as a long-term partnership.” Downtown Whitewater, Inc. is looking to expand its partnership with Terracycle to include other zero-waste projects. Downtown Whitewater, Inc. also works with John’s Disposal Service, a recycling company that serves a multitude of cities in southern Wisconsin, to reduce the amount of waste in the community. Nelson said the number one thing people can do to help is to use the receptacles. “All the effort that went into getting the receptacles out here only pays off if people use them,” Nelson said. “We’ve placed them in locations where we had seen cigarette butts collecting on the ground.” Nelson said she hopes the receptacles are located in convenient places. “We ask that people scope out where they are and use them,” Nelson said. “We hope to see those who smoke disposing of garbage in a productive way. Walking the extra half block does really help in furthering green initiatives around the country.” Increasing Awareness Students Allied for a Green Earth (SAGE) Co-President Lorenzo Backhaus said the campaign will most likely have a positive effect on the Whitewater community and UW-Whitewater. “Eliminating waste and reducing pollution and reusing it is the answer to a lot of environmental issues,” Backhaus said. “Taking these cigarette butts that people have thrown on the ground and reusing them towards multiple peoples’ benefit is a great idea.” Backhaus said it would be even better to also conduct similar projects to reduce and reuse plastic waste to benefit many people. “This campus tries to recycle, but our labels on our garbage cans aren’t the best,” Backhaus said. “If we could just identify campus plastics and put more labels on our recycling and garbage cans, then we could show that we can send it somewhere to benefit people, and not just throw it in a landfill.” Approximately 3.5 trillion cigarette filters are littered globally, filled with toxic chemicals from tobacco smoke, make their way into our environment as discarded waste yearly, according to a Terracycle press release. In 2009, a Keep America Beautiful study found that cigarette waste accounted for 38 percent of all U.S. roadway litter, according to a Terracycle press release. “I don’t want to assume that all people don’t use [their cigarettes] all the way to the bottom,” Backhaus said. “But all these chemicals sitting on the ground definitely isn’t good for plants or animals. Birds will come up and try to eat it. Animals might mistake it for insects. To eliminate waste and reuse it for something is definitely a plus.” Backhaus said plastic can take up to one thousand years to biodegrade when it’s sitting in a landfill or floating in the ocean. “We’re a student org that’s fighting to make sure that [UW-Whitewater] is as sustainable and as green as possible,” Backhaus said. SAGE holds biweekly campus cleanups every other Sunday at 1 p.m. The location designated for volunteer cleaning varies per outing. Green vests, garbage bags and work gloves are provided to volunteers. Backhaus said the organization picks up two garbage bags worth of waste each time. Cigarette waste can be detrimental to the environment, Backhaus said. He hopes the message will be spread to many people to create more awareness on the program. Backhaus said offering this alternative method for disposing of cigarette butts will provide an incentive to put waste in a place where it will help improve the environment. “If people are educated and aware, they will be more entitled to participate,” Backhaus said. “Now that I’m aware of it, on our campus cleanups for SAGE, we’ll bring an extra bag and focus on picking up cigarette butts to throw them in the containers.”

Consider the dirty diaper. Of course, most people would rather not. But consider that the used versions of incontinence products account for about 2 percent of the stuff that clogs American landfills, with 3.7 million tons dumped in 2010. If that seems like a problem, Tom Szaky’s company has a solution. Szaky, chief executive officer of Trenton, N.J.-based TerraCycle, spoke about his favorite subject – garbage – Dec. 6 at Upper St. Clair High School for the Town Hall South lecture series. He explained how TerraCycle scientists have developed a means to separate the artificial and organic materials, including the unpleasantries, and into either compost or plastic pellets to be repurposed for new consumer goods. “We are on a consumption fix. When we buy stuff, that is what causes every environmental issue in the world.” That’s just one example of the company’s mission: “Collecting and recycling things that could never be recycled before,” Szaky said. Cigarettes represent another, as all those discarded butts that smokers toss casually aside could be collected and used in an infinitely better manner. Hirsute and dressed casually, especially for Town Hall South, the 34-year-old Hungary native provided a simple societal reason for TerraCycle even to exist. “We are on a consumption fix,” he said. “When we buy stuff, that is what causes every environmental issue in the world.” As such, and flying in the face of the current seasonal spending spree, Szaky recommended that members of the capacity crowd consider buying durable instead of disposable goods, and to buy used items. “The very best thing, which I challenge you on, is to stop buying unless you really have to,” he said. Szaky told the audience about his first efforts on the road toward TerraCycle, when he was a student at Princeton University. He showed a slide depicting an impressive multilevel contraption designed to take food waste, feed it to worms and emerge with compost. “No one would invest in our idea,” he admitted. The next try worked better, packaging liquefied compost in discarded soda bottles as marketing them as TerraCycle Plant Food. Szaky said he promptly received letters from lawyers representing beverage companies, claiming infringement on intellectual property because of the bottles’ shapes, but he convinced them that his intentions were good. One multinational corporation, though, threatened a protracted legal battle, one that TerraCycle couldn’t afford. So the fledgling company went another route instead. “You don’t have to play on their playing field,” Szaky explained. “We decided to play this in the media rather than in the courtroom.” The result was plenty of positive coverage for TerraCycle and a corresponding boost in sales that helped pave the way toward stability and sustained growth. Today, the company is housed in a renovated 100,000-square-foot building, where artists around Trenton always are welcome to expressive their creativity by painting on the walls. Meanwhile, Szaky continues to laud the American business environment for giving him the opportunity to pursue an unconventional path. “This is a country where you can create ideas and take risks,” he said, “because without risk, you can’t innovate.” He also pointed to the entrepreneurial successes of immigrants like himself. “That’s important to remember, especially in today’s political climate.”

GU Energy Labs has announced a new packaging sleeve for Gu Energy Chews. The sleeve now carries a stack of eight individual Energy Chews that each deliver 20 calories. "Now easier to open, eat on the go, and share with friends, GU Energy Chews contain sodium to replenish electrolytes, complex and simple carbohydrates for fast and lasting energy, and branched-chain amino acids to help prevent mental fatigue and reduce muscle damage," the company said.  The company said the new double-serving package fulfils the wishes of athletes who asked for a compact way to carry more fuel. Gu Energy Labs will continue to offer Energy Chews in single-serving pouches for athletes that prefer the smaller serving size. Flavors include strawberry, blueberry pomegranate, orange, and watermelon. Like all Gu Energy Labs packaging, the new Energy Chews sleeves can be recycled with Terracycle.

Global eye health company Bausch + Lomb has launched a national recycling program to provide Americans with a responsible option for their otherwise non-recyclable contact lenses and blister packs. By partnering with recycling company TerraCycle to create the Bausch + Lomb ONE by ONE recycling program, Bausch + Lomb gives contact lens wearers the ability to recycle used BiotrueONEday brand contact lenses and blister packs, and lenses and packs from other Bausch + Lomb brands, as well as all other contact lens brands.   Contact lenses and blister packs are considered non-recyclable through municipal facilities mainly because they are too small to be captured by standard sorting machinery. Through the Bausch + Lomb ONE by ONE recycling program, contact lenses and blister packs are now 100% recyclable, providing a nationwide solution to prevent these items from entering the waste stream, at zero cost to the consumer. Once collected, contact lenses and blister packs are separated and cleaned. The metal layers of the blister packs are recycled separately, while the contact lenses and plastic blister-pack components are melted into plastic that can be remolded to make recycled products. For every pound of accepted BiotrueONEday and other Bausch + Lomb brand packaging sent through this program, a $1 donation will be made to Optometry Giving Sight, a global fundraising initiative that targets the prevention of blindness and impaired vision. “Bausch + Lomb is continuously striving to become a more environmentally sustainable company in order to preserve not only the well-being of our patients, but also of our environment,” says Guy Guglielmino, Vice President of Marketing, Vision Care, Bausch + Lomb. “With the launch of our Bausch + Lomb ONE by ONE recycling program, we are asking people to join us to take ONE small step each day to help the environment, so that together we can create a significant positive impact.” The Bausch + Lomb ONE by ONE recycling program is open to any interested individual, eye care professional, or organization.