Despite a growing emphasis on recycling, most of what we throw away still winds up in landfills or polluting the ocean. NBC News’ Anne Thompson reports how Terracycle is trying to change that.
At the moment, there are 165 million tons of plastic in our oceans. If something doesn’t change, there will be
more plastic than fish by weight in the oceans by 2050. The use of plastics has skyrocketed in the past 50 years, and this trend is likely to continue because it is in nearly all the products we consume. If the strong growth for plastics doesn’t subside, the plastics sector will account for
20 percent of total global oil consumption. Sadly, sea life and birds are dying from eating or becoming tangled in this debris.
Takeaways from Terracycle, mad scientists of recycling, from 15 years of working with global consumer brands
Tom Szaky, the Hungarian-born CEO and founder of TerraCycle, dreams of chewing gum, cigarette butts and ocean plastic. His Trenton, New Jersey-based company aims to accelerate the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, a breakthrough in materials science, energy storage and other technologies, by cleaning up after heaps of waste and inventing inputs for items spurned by ordinary recyclers.
It’s not unusual for different areas of a company to embrace sustainability at different levels. The key, says Procter & Gamble’s Virginie Helias, is to understand the reasons why and the challenges of bringing everyone up to the same standard of commitment and engagement.
P&G partnered with TerraCycle to create the Fairy Ocean Plastic bottle, which is made from 90 percent post-consumer recycled plastic and 10 percent ocean plastic.
Tom Szaky, the Hungarian-born CEO and founder of TerraCycle, dreams of chewing gum, cigarette butts and ocean plastic. His Trenton, New Jersey-based company aims to accelerate the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, a breakthrough in materials science, energy storage and other technologies, by cleaning up after heaps of waste and inventing inputs for items spurned by ordinary recyclers.
