Other coffee companies are also wrestling with the waste issue. Businesses that use Flavia pods, which is made by Mars, are able to ship the used pods to the New Jersey company TerraCycle, which will compost the coffee or tea and reuse the plastic in products like pavers and fencing, a TerraCycle spokesman, Albe Zakes said. More than 2.5 million Flavia packs in the United States have been recycled in the last year. Mars sells a billion drinks a year in 35,000 workplaces worldwide.
In Britain, Mr. Zakes said, TerraCycle has processed more than 800,000 coffee discs from Kraft’s Tassimo single-serve system. The results are being evaluated for possible application in the United States, a Kraft spokeswoman, Bridget MacConnell, said. Kraft and Mars are paying for collecting the pods, including shipping costs to TerraCycle.
TerraCycle makes affordable, eco-friendly products from a range of different non-recyclble waste materials. TerraCycle is one of the fastest growing eco-friendly manufacturers in the world!
TerraCycle's mission is to take material that would otherwise go into landfills and create useful (and profitable) consumer products. Szaky often refers to trash as the things people will pay to get rid of. In his book, he compares graffiti to the raw materials in TerraCycle's products. Cities and individuals are willing to pay to get rid of graffiti. Beyond the urban art that decorates their facility, TerraCycle sells Urban Art Flower Pots <http://www.terracycle.net/products/5-Urban-Art-Flower-Pot> that are constructed from plastic waste and decorated by local graffiti artists.
MEXICO CITY, Aug 2, 2010 (IPS) - Women's laughter fills the rectangular room on the ground floor of a building that houses a school for 250 local children, on the southern edge of Mexico City's sprawling metropolitan area.
The room seems too small to contain the two dozen women busy cutting and folding strips of plastic laminated paper recovered from discarded food wrappers. The strips will later be plaited using a traditional palm-leaf weaving technique passed down by the Nahua people.
The women run a craft centre that is part of the local cooperative "Mitz" (a Nahuatl word that means "For you"), where they use recycled material to make bags, coin purses, date books, picture frames, Christmas decorations and accessories, having achieved a monthly production of about 3,000 craft items.
Recycle and Earn
Did you know billions of drink pouches are thrown out each year? TerraCycle collects these discarded pouches and turns them into cool products. Sponsored by the drink pouch makers themselves (CapriSun and Kool-Aid) these groovy pencil case holders will be the talk at the lunch table. You can get your school involved too. Collect drink pouches, turn them in and collect cash for your school. Go to www.terracycle.net and find out more. Pencil cases starting at $2. (TerraCycle makes lunch boxes too. See page XXX)
Jodi says, "As a pay-it-forward(er) I try and buy items I know I can give back with. For example Box Top all you do is clip the top and turn it in. Your school gets $.10 back for each one. You can also turn in your Sunny Delight Labels to earn points towards free books. There is also a program called Terracycle that donates to your school. Capri sun is one of the products."
Other coffee companies are also wrestling with the waste issue. Businesses that use Flavia pods, which is made by Mars, are able to ship the used pods to the New Jersey company TerraCycle, which will compost the coffee or tea and reuse the plastic in products like pavers and fencing, a TerraCycle spokesman, Albe Zakes said. More than 2.5 million Flavia packs in the United States have been recycled in the last year. Mars sells a billion drinks a year in 35,000 workplaces worldwide.
In Britain, Mr. Zakes said, TerraCycle has processed more than 800,000 coffee discs from Kraft’s Tassimo single-serve system. The results are being evaluated for possible application in the United States, a Kraft spokeswoman, Bridget MacConnell, said. Kraft and Mars are paying for collecting the pods, including shipping costs to TerraCycle.
