In 2013 Nespresso partnered with Terracycle to establish a growing network of recycling points at selected florists throughout the country. The North Rocks Greenery is one of the recycling points.

Recycling has even become a worldwide business with TerraCycle, a company that recycles hard-to-recycle items, launching in Australia in 2014. It started in the US in 2001 and is now in 21 countries. “The TerraCycle philosophy is to eliminate the idea of waste,” TerraCycle communications manager Ausseela Thanaphongsakom said. In Australia it allows people to recycle yoghurt pouches, used mail satchels and other dental products for free. While the company has only just established itself in Australia, in other countries it even offers recycling of things like chewing gum. “I think (the companies) perceive, rightly so, that consumers would appreciate and are demanding such programs,” TerraCycle founder and chief executive officer Tom Szaky told news.com.au. Pretty much everything is recyclable, Mr Szaky explained, but the problem is making it into a product that people wanted to buy. This is because most products, especially plastics, can only be “downcycled”. A plastic toothbrush can’t be recycled into a new plastic toothbrush, for example. This is in contrast to metal, which can be recycled endlessly, and paper, which can be recycled seven times. Most plastics are recycled into things like park benches and garden materials. Part of TerraCycle’s business is creating a market for these recycled products. Mr Szaky said he thought Australians had less opportunity to recycle things, compared with other countries, because of a lack of infrastructure. This applied even to more profitable materials such as glass and paper. But he acknowledged that the ideal situation was not to consume. “That’s the fundamental answer, don’t buy this stuff to begin with. But if you chose to buy, as many do, the best thing is to buy things that you can reuse.” TERRACYCLE RECYCLING PROGRAM Items that can be recycled for free include: Colgate Oral Care Brigade: used toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, floss containers and outer packaging Nescafé Dolce Gusto Capsules Brigade: only Nescafé Dolce Gusto are accepted. Whole Kids Snack and Pouch Brigade: snack wrappers and yoghurt pouches. Australia Post Mailing Satchel Brigade: Mailing post satchels. Natures Organics Cleaner Packaging Brigade: nozzles, triggers, on cleaning, beauty and laundry products, beauty wipe packaging Nespresso Capsules Brigade: only Nespresso capsules are accepted and can be dropped off at participating florists and garden centres. Loccitane Recycling Program: Its products can be dropped at participating stores. For more information on the free recycling program go to: www.terracycle.com.au/en-AU/brigades You can also purchase zero waste boxes to recycle other items: www.terracycle.com.au/en-AU/zero_waste_boxes

TerraCycle them! TerraCycle makes consumer products from pre-consumer and post-consumer waste and by reusing other waste materials. It's free, simply join a baby food pouch brigade, collect your pouches in a box, print their free shipping label and mail them your waste. It's actually quite easy.

The New Jersey based Terracycle organizes programs for hard-to-recycle items, like baby food squeeze packs, Tetra Paks, toothbrushes, wisp flossers, Tupperware, Nespresso Capsules, Scotch Tape, shoes, wine boxes, pet food bags, pens, and more. While a few of these items can be recycled curbside, their mail-in system is a great option if your municipality doesn’t allow it.

"HOW far will you go?" asks an espresso-sipping George Clooney in the Nespresso television commercial. He's talking about lengths we would go for good coffee, but it's a question coffee pod drinkers of all brands should ask themselves.

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”.

A daily coffee gives many of us a much-needed second wind, but what about a second life for the capsules responsible for the caffeine boost? Wollongong florist Primavera Flowers has joined a nationwide coffee capsule recycling program set up by Nespresso and recycling company TerraCycle. As part of the initiative, coffee connoisseurs can drop their used Nespresso capsules in a collection box inside the Corrimal Street store at no cost. Owner Lina Russo jumped at the opportunity to help Wollongong residents do their bit for the environment. "I know these little capsules are made out of aluminium foil and they don't perish," she said. "So, it was absolutely no trouble for me to offer a little space in our shop, if we could help the environment. "Coffee is really in vogue, a lot of people drink it and these [Nespresso] machines are really affordable now, so a lot of people have them in their houses. "Often they don't know what to do [with the capsules], they just put them in the bin, so that's why we're here." Ms Russo said the concept had been "exceptionally well received" and she was onto her second collection box just eight weeks into the program. "We've had a lot of customers popping in just saying hello and dropping their little bags off. "In the morning, often I find little bags next to our front door, so the news is starting to spread really well." TerraCycle collects the used capsules and sends them to Nespresso's recycling plant, where they are "upcycled" into various aluminium products. Only Nespresso capsules are accepted as part of the program and the capsules should be sealed in a plastic bag.

At TerraCycle, we have developed collection and recycling programs for capsule waste by partnering with coffee producers such as Tassimo, Nespresso, Mars Drinks, and Illy. For coffee capsule waste not accepted by these recycling programs, we also have the Coffee Capsules Zero Waste Box, allowing anyone to send us any capsule waste for recycling

TerraCycle, a company that provides recycling solutions for spent coffee pods, has teamed up with Tassimo, Mars Drinks, Nespresso and Illy, but despite reaching out to the company multiples times, has not be able to develop a relationship with Green Mountain (Keurig).