GOLD: TerraCycle TerraCycle’s business model is to eliminate waste by offering free recycling fundraisers to any school, non-profit, corporation or individual/family for any type of man-made waste. The program incentivizes the collection of common packaging and products ranging from candy wrappers to cosmetics, packaging to cigarette butts. “Brigades” collect waste that TerraCycle then turns into more than 1500 new products, ranging from recycled park benches to upcycled backpacks. These products are available online and at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods. There are currently more than 40 programs that range from food packaging (like drink pouches and candy wrappers) to office supplies (like pens and tape dispensers) to personal products (like cosmetic and beauty packaging to diaper packaging). For every item returned, TerraCycle donates two-cents (or the local equivalent) to a school or non-profit of the collector’s choice. TerraCycle operates in 22 countries, minimizing the global threats of landfill and incineration on humans and the environment. So far, through TerraCycle, 32 million consumers have diverted 2.5 billion units of waste from landfill and incineration, while earning over 4.5 million dollars (US) for schools and myriad non- profits. For example, the drink pouch is a ubiquitous waste stream found in every school cafeteria in America. In order to offset the estimated 11 BILLION pouches that go to waste every year in America alone, TerraCycle partnered with Honest Tea and Capri Sun to start the Drink Pouch Brigade. The free recycling fundraiser was an opportunity for two competitors to put aside their corporate differences and do the right thing for the environment. Since the Program was founded, over 70,000 organizations – including 57,000 schools – signed up for the program. As of December 2012 they helped collect over 164 MILLION drink pouches and collectively earned over 3.2 million dollars. The collected pouches are upcycled or recycled into a variety of products. School items like pencil cases and backpacks that help to complete the education for kids. The students get to see what the pouches they helped collect are turned into for a second life. Pouches are also recycled into more utilitarian products like park benches, picnic tables and railroad ties. TerraCycle’s programs are sponsored by some of the world’s largest companies. These major companies include Kraft Foods, Nestle, Mars, Inc., Kimberly-Clark, Frito-Lay, Kashi, Sanford, Elmer’s Products, Inc, Logitech, Old Navy, Clif Bar, Sprout Baby Food, 3M, Malt-O-Meal, Colgate, Palmolive, L’Oreal, and BIC.

There’s no longer any reason to throw out used, disposable pedicure flip-flops! They can be recycled with TerraCycle. Thanks to the sponsorship of Old Navy, spas can send their old flip-flops to TerraCycle free of charge—and receive exclusive coupons to share with clients in return for their recycling efforts. Employees and customers can simply drop the flip-flips in a designated box. When the box is full, an employee can download and print a prepaid UPS shipping label from the TerraCycle website and send the waste to TerraCycle. The flip-flops will be recycled into innovative products such as playgrounds, park benches and bike racks.

Old Navy Launches Ongoing Collection Program with TerraCycle Thanks to the sponsorship of retailer Old Navy, consumers and salons can send their old flip-flops to TerraCycle free of charge and receive exclusive coupons in return. The flip-flops will be recycled into innovative products such as playgrounds, park benches and bike racks. Old Navy and TerraCycle held the first Flip Flop Replay which started Earth Day, April 22, 2011 and ran through May 21 at all U.S. Old Navy stores. The nationwide collection campaign resulted in almost twenty thousand used flip-flops being diverted from landfills and instead, used to make playgrounds that were donated to four schools around the country. This success proved the need for a permanent program.

One of our favorite things to do is to find people or organizations coming up with some innovative ways to repurpose items that could pose as an environmental threat to our land and our lives. This year Old Navy is partnering with TerraCycle, one of the fastest growing eco-companies in the world, to encourage everyone to turn in old, used or broken flip-flops so that they could be used as material for playgrounds. The objective is to help eliminate waste through recycling. TerraCycle was founded by Tom Szaky in 2001 and to date has turned billions of units of waste into diverse recycled products. If you have any old, worn out flip-flops, regardless of their condition, do not throw them away!

Recycling has been one of the biggest movements in response to pollution, and dealing with the huge amounts of waste produced by today’s society. Of the biggest problems with recycling is that there are a lot of plastics, and other products that aren’t recyclable yet. A lot of progress has happened recently in recycling abilities, but there are many products and luxuries that we use today that come in packaging that isn’t easily recycled. This is where the company Terracycle comes in. Terracycle is a company that collects hard to recycle wastes and either recycles the materials, or upcylces them for new purposes.

Earth Day falls on Monday, April 22, this year, and Old Navy has partnered up with trash-to-treasure eco company TerraCycle to turn old, used, or broken flip flops into material for playgrounds. TerraCycle was founded in 2001 and has since become one of the fastest growing green companies in the world. According to TerraCycle’s website, their purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste by recycling one man’s trash into another man’s treasure. Started by 20-year-old Princeton University freshman Tom Szaky in 2001, TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste by turning them into different recycled products with more than 20 million people in 20 countries participating worldwide.

LIHU‘E — A Kaua‘i Community College student is attempting to introduce a recycling program that would ship waste to the Mainland annually, with hopes that it would pay for itself over time. Britney Gurkin, a freshman biochemistry major with a goal of eventually pursuing a doctorate, has taken the lead in an effort to bring an innovative recycling program to Kaua‘i.

In a program started in May in Canada and now running from the United States to Spain, TerraCycle collects cigarette butts from volunteers and turns them into plastic, which can be used for anything, even ashtrays themselves. The discarded cigarettes, which litter countries around the world, are first broken up, with the paper and remaining tobacco composted. The filter, made of a plastic called cellulose acetate, is melted down and turned into an ingredient for making a wide range of industrial plastic products, such as pallets -- the trays used to ship heavy goods. It seems that for once smoking benefits everyone. The tobacco industry, happy to get some decent publicity, pays TerraCycle. Volunteer collectors win points per butt, which can then be redeemed as contributions to charities. Sidewalks start looking cleaner. And TerraCycle, which sells recycled products to retailers like Walmart and Whole Foods, gets more business.

In a program started in May in Canada and now running from the United States to Spain, TerraCycle collects cigarette butts from volunteers and turns them into plastic, which can be used for anything, even ashtrays themselves. The discarded cigarettes, which litter countries around the world, are first broken up, with the paper and remaining tobacco composted. The filter, made of a plastic called cellulose acetate, is melted down and turned into an ingredient for making a wide range of industrial plastic products, such as pallets -- the trays used to ship heavy goods. It seems that for once smoking benefits everyone. The tobacco industry, happy to get some decent publicity, pays TerraCycle. Volunteer collectors win points per butt, which can then be redeemed as contributions to charities. Sidewalks start looking cleaner. And TerraCycle, which sells recycled products to retailers like Walmart and Whole Foods, gets more business. TerraCycle has a similarly creative view on all manner of other refuse that has tended to be bracketed as impossible to recycle and is instead sent to the landfill. Juice sachets, plastic bottles, pens, coffee capsules, candy wrappers, toothbrushes and computer keyboards are all grist for TerraCycle's mill.

Earth Shepherd Environmental Group of Absegami High School conducted its first fundraiser over the fall, collecting over 100 flip-flops to be recycled, according to Earth Shepherd President Jamie Infanti.   The group teamed up with the Smithville and Reeds Road elementary schools in the collection effort. According to Infanti, the flip-flops will be recycled by TerraCycle Inc. into items such as trash bins, flooring and park benches.   TerraCycle is a national recycling group that specializes in recycling previously non-recyclable material or material that is hard to recycle. It was founded in 2001 by Pirnceton University freshman Tom Szaky.   “I saw a sign for the TerraCycle flip-flop recycling program at an Old Navy store and thought it would be a fun and different way to recycle and to encourage other people to do the same,” said Infanti, a 16-year-old sophomore at Absegami who started the Earth Shepherd group this year. “(The flip flop drive) seemed like something that would be easy for people to do and something that people would respond to.”