One of the latest efforts to improve sustainability and keep hardto- recycle material out of landfills is a collaboration among Clearwater Nursery in Nipomo, international recycler TerraCycle, and food and consumer products giant Unilever. “We’re working with our partners to be the exclusive provider of potted plants in ‘upcycled’ butter containers,” explained Steven Medeiros, Clearwater Nursery marketing executive. “The idea behind the program is to repurpose these containers for a second and third run.”

Saintly Recyclers mail in their trash. Terracycle.net will recycle (usually postage is free) and donate to charity your candy wrappers, yogurt cups, drink pouches, cookie wrappers, Flavia Freshpacks, Frito-Lay chip bags, energy and granola bar wrappers, Bear Naked wrappers, Kashi packages, cell phones, Huggies and Scott tissue wrappers, Aveno tubes, Scotch tape dispensers, corks, cereal bags, Sharpies and Papermate writing instruments, Neosporin tubes, coffee bags, lunch kits (like Lunchables), Colgate tubes and packaging, Ziploc bags and containers, Inkjet cartridges, and Sprout and Revolutions food containers. Preserveproducts.com recycles your No. 5 plastics (same company that has the receptacles at Whole Foods) and water filters into toothbrushes and razors.

“We hope to wake up one day and become the new version of recycling, where every waste stream has a solution within the TerraCycle system.” It all started with worms. When fed organic waste, worm ‘tea’ is produced through their excrement. One man began to bottle this concoction into used soda bottles as a natural plant food, by taking food scraps from the disposal bin at Princeton Dining Services. That man was Tom Szaky. By the next summer, Tom met his first investor, and TerraCycle was born. As sales of the natural plant food grew, Tom began looking for new ways to reuse. His company began to take the items that nobody else wanted, cigarette butts, toothbrushes, juice cartons, expired pills and food wrappers, and explore ways or reusing anything and everything that was available. “‘We want to be the recycling solution for everything that’s not recyclable today,’ Tom says, ‘But we don’t have all the answers yet.