Have you ever found yourself facing your recycling bin, completely befuddled about whether or not you can put a particular item in it? You’re not alone. According to Planet Ark, nearly half of Australians find recycling confusing.  Australia’s recycling rules can seem horrendously complicated, but fortunately they are becoming more simple. In the meantime, here’s a brief guide to some of the golden rules of kerbside recycling, plus what to do with materials that can’t go in your recycling bin. What about things that can’t be recycled at home? Just because something can’t be recycled through kerbside collections, that doesn’t mean it can’t be recycled at all. New channels for recycling more complex items have been pioneered by organisations such as Planet Ark and TerraCycle, as well as by local councils, industry and government under schemes such as the Australian Packaging Covenant and the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme. Free Terracycle recycling programs. Adapted from TerraCycle (http://www.terracycle.com.au)

Have you ever found yourself facing your recycling bin, completely befuddled about whether or not you can put a particular item in it? You’re not alone. According to Planet Ark, nearly half of Australians find recycling confusing.  Australia’s recycling rules can seem horrendously complicated, but fortunately they are becoming more simple.

What about things that can’t be recycled at home?

Just because something can’t be recycled through kerbside collections, that doesn’t mean it can’t be recycled at all. New channels for recycling more complex items have been pioneered by organisations such as Planet Ark and TerraCycle, as well as by local councils, industry and government under schemes such as the Australian Packaging Covenant and the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme. Free Terracycle recycling programs. Adapted from TerraCycle (http://www.terracycle.com.au) Recycling is vital to reducing resource use and waste to landfill, and so getting it right is crucial.

Have you ever found yourself facing your recycling bin, completely befuddled about whether or not you can put a particular item in it? You’re not alone. According to Planet Ark,  nearly half of Australians find recycling confusing. Australia’s recycling rules can seem horrendously complicated, but fortunately they are becoming more simple. New channels for recycling more complex items have been pioneered by organisations such as Planet Ark and TerraCycle, as well as by local councils, industry and government under schemes such as the Australian Packaging Covenant and the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme. Free Terracycle recycling programs. Adapted from TerraCycle (http://www.terracycle.com.au). Recycling is vital to reducing resource use and waste to landfill, and so getting it right is crucial.

As a social business with a triple bottom line of ‘planet, people and profit’ TerraCycle’s motivation from its beginning as a worm fertiliser start-up to a global recycling company is to ‘eliminate the idea of waste’. Through nationwide collection programs called Brigades, that are free and accessible, TerraCycle’s purpose is to recycle ‘unrecyclable’ waste streams that others deem challenging, impossible or unsavoury and provide a cyclical solution through reuse, upcycling and recycling. TerraCycle does not believe in linear solutions such as incinerating waste or waste-to-landfill.

Anna Minns and the small local team that form TerraCycle are pulling off a ‘David & Goliath’ type feat in tackling the waste associated with major brands operating in Australia, writes Paula Wallace. It’s simple; it’s ingenious; and it seems to be working. Anna Minns told WME about how the start-up was collecting and storing massive amounts of waste in a Victorian warehouse that would have gone into landfills or otherwise entered the environment. But the big news is not the waste being diverted that had previously been considered unrecyclable but, instead, the programs TerraCycle is putting together with corporates to recycle/re-purpose it. “Virtually everything is recyclable,” TerraCycle general manager, Australian and New Zealand operations Anna Minns said. “The whole purpose for this business is to create markets for these materials ... so that eventually people aren’t throwing away chip packets because they’re actually worth something.” It’s true that companies have it within their power to take a greater stewardship role in the lifecycle of their products. It could even be argued that some progress has been made through industry-led initiatives focusing on packaging. But it has taken an innovator such as TerraCycle to disrupt the business-as-usual approach and show big brands how to close the loop on difficult-to-recycle materials. While many have complained about the blight of cigarette butts on the Australian landscape few have been able to make much of a difference, until now. Thanks to TerraCycle and its ‘Brigades’ program model, little parcels have been arriving from all around Australia, containing hundreds of thousands of butts – in fact six tonnes worth to date. Australia Post has partnered with TerraCycle to transport a range of waste items, including a new program launched at the end of May that will operate via specially created postal ‘bins’. TerraCycle is also gradually building up a national network of materials drop-off points that range from interested business, to the dentistry industry and other businesses. But back to the butts: Minns has achieved a first with the cigarette brigade program even for TerraCycle, which now operates in more than 20 countries, as she managed to get the three big brands to work together – British American Tobacco Australia, Philip Morris Limited and Imperial Tobacco Australia. “The entire tobacco industry is our partner,” Minns said. “They came together as a industry to fund the program and it’s a great example of industry funding a voluntary product stewardship scheme.” For every kilogram of cigarette waste that participants send in to TerraCycle they receive 200 TerraCycle points ($2.00), which can be redeemed for a payment of $0.01 per point to the charity of their choice. Shipments must contain a minimum of one kilogram of cigarette waste in order to receive a TerraCycle point donation. The postage is offered free and the whole program is underwritten by the tobacco industry. TerraCycle hopes that in the future it can work with established organisations such as the Australian Packaging Covenant to develop similar programs with major product suppliers. TerraCycle has similar programs operating for Dolce Gusto and Nespresso brand coffee capsules, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes with Colgate, and triggers, sprays and pumps used in Natures Organics’ product range. “We don’t do any of the processing or manufacturing, that’s all third party suppliers ... we like to rely on existing technologies,” Minns said, adding that TerraCycle’s team of designers and scientists conducted the research and development on extracting resources from waste streams – IP which they share with local processors. According to Minns the lifecycle analysis that TerraCycle has conducted on various waste streams have all found conclusively that it’s a better environmental outcome to recycle than to landfill or incinerate. “Transporting is only a small part of the footprint, especially because we work through existing transport networks. We work with Australia Post so it’s just the extra weight on the truck,” she said. Creating markets What seems most remarkable about the TerraCycle story is that the Australian operation received no start-up funding from its US parent and no other forms or capital or government funding. TerraCycle is a private US small business headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey. It makes consumer products from pre-consumer and post-consumer waste and by re-using other waste materials. Minns, who previously worked in the legal field, worked at TerraCycle’s headquarters in the US for six months prior to bringing the business model to Australia. She worked unpaid for the first 12 months, managing in that time to devise programs with the tobacco industry and companies Colgate-Palmolive, Nestle and Nature’s Organics. The start-up’s marketing activities are primarily targeting companies and individuals, face-to-face presentations, online marketing and word of mouth. Minns said that recycled products would develop over time as they were able to build demand for the materials. “We pelletise the materials and sell them into an open market, we have a whole team that is focused on materials sales. That’s the overarching driver and purpose behind it all,” she said. “We collect so many chip bags in the US we are now able to sell that material. There’s a company in the US that buys the chip bag plastic for their decking products. She added that markets would not develop “overnight”. TerraCycle most recently launched its first user-pays program using Zero Waste Boxes, distributed through retail outlets for $100-200 each. Similar to programs running in the US and Canada which have seen two million pens collected in just one of the waste streams, the program will target businesses and households. Some of the materials accepted include coffee and tea capsules; office stationery such as pens, pencils and markers;  batteries;  mail room supplies;  binders; plastic gloves;  beardnets and hairnets; and snack wrappers. “We’re hoping to launch some new programs soon,” Minns said. “We’re working with councils on a cigarette programs with some councils already trialling bins around cities, hospitals and universities”.

Making millions from a business that recycles cigarette butts seems stranger than fiction. But Tom Szaky is an entrepreneur bent on making the impossible possible. Szaky's company TerraCycle has been described as “the coolest little start-up in America” and “the Google of garbage”. But don't describe this super eco-friendly outfit as just another recycling company.  

Launching this month in Australia, TerraCycle, will help us turn previously unrecyclable waste into affordable, sustainable consumer products and materials.

Recycling  personal  beauty  product  pumps,  tubes  or  face  wipes  is  no  longer  an  obstacle  with  the  introduction  of  an  Australian  first,  eco-responsible  program  “Cleaning Product Packaging  Brigade®”  by  innovative  recycling  pioneers  TerraCycle. Australians  are  now  able  to  collect  their  hand  wash  pumps,  body  wash  pumps,  beauty  product  pumps,  beauty  product  tubes  and  face  wipes  at  home  or  in  the  workplace. They  can  then  send  their  collections  to  TerraCycle  to  be  recycled  into  bright,  fun  and  sustainable  items  instead  of  being  discarded  garbage  sent  to  landfill. “ Now  consumers  have  a  “clean”  choice  with  the  option  to  recycle  used  beauty  products  regardless  of  brand -  and  look  good  and  feel  good.  Our  recycling  Brigades®  also allow  collectors  to  raise  money  for  their  local  school  or  favourite  charity.”  said  Anna  Minns,  General  Manager,  TerraCycle  Australia.

We all try to do our part. If nothing else, most people will throw their recyclables into those yellow-lidded bins. But what do you do with non-recyclables? American start-up TerraCycle have saved 2.6 billion pieces of waste through their upcycling process which turns hard to recycle waste into new products. Founder and CEO Tom Szaky spoke with Tim Higgins about TerraCycle's unique brand of upcycling, which has now started up in Australia.

Waste isn’t always the sexiest topic. When I tell people about the green business that I run and what we do, for some it’s a topic they would prefer to avoid thinking about. Once something is placed in the rubbish – it’s out of sight out of mind. But our waste ends up somewhere, whether it is at the local tip or in our oceans.