Recycling should feel good and most importantly, be easy. Reducing waste, saving energy, helping the planet—these are all things that most of us want to do—whether we are packaging engineers or just plain old consumers—but struggle to when the process is difficult or unclear! But in a system full of complicated rules and tiny numbers in often hard to find triangles, recycling often turns into a frustrating process, ending in a blind toss into what we hope is the right bin. Even as packaging experts we are sometimes unsure of which bin, is the right bin! To help break down these barriers, not-for-profit Recycle Across America (RAA) distributes standardized recycling-bin labels, designed to reduce public confusion about how to recycle. The labels clearly point out what can be placed in a bin, from plastic only to mixed recycling to compostables and yes, even the dreaded landfill. Using simple clear imagery and minimal copy these labels could be understood by someone who doesn’t even speak our language! TerraCycle has partnered with RAA for the launch of their Recycle Right! social action campaign, which features advertisements, videos, and tips on recycling in hopes of doubling the amount of standardized labels in use to 1 million labels deployed on bins nationwide. The campaign is kicking off in conjunction with the premiere of “Human Resources”, a new show about the world of TerraCycle fromParticipant Media. Consumers are the first step in the recycling process, so clarity about how to get things started is important. When people don’t know what can be recycled or where to put it, waste streams often end up polluted with trash or intermingled recyclables. Costs increase and time is wasted as processors are forced to sort through waste for the materials they can use. This discourages sustainable practices; if the cost of recycling is greater than the value of the materials, it just won’t happen. Meanwhile, daunting rules lead many consumers to throw up their hands and just throw everything in the garbage. According to the EPA, Americans recycled only 38% of aluminum packaging and 34% of glass packaging in 2012. As a result, landfills are filling up with material that won’t break down for decades and that could have easily been recovered and reused. Confusion is also burdening businesses, organizations and schools who want to reduce waste and recycle. Green consultants or sustainability administrators end up spending much of their time trying to increase effectiveness of recycling programs and decrease waste-hauling costs. Clearer labeling on bins would simplify recycling for everyone and allow these groups to focus on broader sustainability initiatives. Some big-name adopters of RAA’s labels include NBCUniversal, Procter and Gamble manufacturing and Hallmark. Additionally, over 2,000 K-12 schools in the US have taken them on. The results? According to RAA, standardized recycling labels help increase recycling more than 50% and significantly decrease the amount of trash or incorrect recyclable thrown into recycling bins and polluting that once valuable material. Implementing bin labels in the office is a first step anyone can take to improve company recycling practices. But packagers could potentially play a larger role in organizing the chaos of the recycling system. Right now, a lack of consistent labeling or clear directions makes it difficult to determine what to do with certain waste; food containers, different types of paper and the range of numbered plastics all lead to puzzled customers. Some efforts have been made to demystify that little green triangle. The On-Pack Recycling Label launched in the UK in 2009, aiming to provide clearer instructions and keep trash out of recycling streams. The labels, which have been adopted by about 150 brands, indicate whether each part of a package is recycled widely, only in certain areas or not at all. A similar effort by the How2Recycle project has been offered to US businesses since 2012. And customer surveys have shown that 80% of customers who saw the How2Recycle label on a package gained a more positive impression of that company. Figuring out where to toss our trash shouldn’t be stressful. People want to reduce their impact on the planet, and when a company makes it easy for their customers to go green, everybody comes out happier. Processors win, consumers win, the planet wins and the price of recycled materials goes down meaning packaging designers and engineers can finally convince the other stakeholders at going to post-consumer waste packaging makes sense! Author Tom Szaky, founder/CEO of TerraCycle, has won more than 50 awards for entrepreneurship, also writes blogs for Treehugger and The New York Times, recently published a book called "Revolution in a Bottle" and is the star of a National Geographic Channel special, "Garbage Moguls."

Pivot TV’s new reality show about converting waste materials into new better quality stuff, is changing the definition of trash TV. The new half hour comedy show, “Human Resources,” premiers August 8. It’s based on the eccentric staff at New Jersey upcycling company Terra Cycle. The world of reality TV has few, if any, boundaries. The era of weird people’s life on camera has included such Emmy worthy programs as “Vanilla Ice Goes Amish” and “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” And then there was the ever twisted reality show “The Swan,” which took women deemed “unattractive” and gave them extreme plastic surgery-laden makeovers. But that’s not quite the flow for “Human Resources.” According to Terra Cycle CEO Tom Szaky, it’s all about eliminating the concept of waste by making things that were formerly unrecyclable, recyclable. They reuse, upcycle, and even recycle nearly everything that you could imagine. It’s a nutty crew in a nutty workspace with daily lunch yoga, rain dances on the front lawn, superhero sock day, and vegan lunches. But most importantly, the show is shining a light on a really cool company whose mission is to create waste collection programs called Brigades for things that are traditionally difficult to recycle. The waste is transformed into brand new products from recycled park benches to upcycledbackpacks. Terra Cycle is trying to fix a big problem, considering that 90 percent of the stuff we buy will be in the dump within the year. But by changing our perspective, nothing needs to be trash because one system’s trash is another system’s food–just like in nature. Either way, it’s certainly an upgrade from “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé”, “I Cloned My Pet”, or “Living Lohan.”

By combining our strengths, TerraCycle, RAA and Pivot TV will bring more awareness to reshaping recycling and bettering the environment. Although this is only one partnership hoping to better the environment, it is still better than no initiative at all. After all, it takes a planet to save a planet, and you always have to start somewhere.

A new workplace "docu-comedy" following the leadership team at TerraCycle will air on Pivot TV next month. "Basically, it's an unscripted, Millennial's version of 'The Office' but where the water cooler trash talk revolves around talking about actual trash," writes Matt Hickman.

By combining our strengths, TerraCycle, RAA and Pivot TV will bring more awareness to reshaping recycling and bettering the environment. Although this is only one partnership hoping to better the environment, it is still better than no initiative at all. After all, it takes a planet to save a planet, and you always have to start somewhere.

According to the latest census, there are roughly three times as many reality TV shows as there are people, so pretty much every job you could possibly imagine has a show. There are shows about the high stakes of baking; programs devoted to the thrilling world of long-haultrucking (which somehow has not had a single episode about meth); series on goldfish caretaking; heck, every other gun shop inAmerica has a show (which is a lot of gun shops). Toddlers in tiaras have their own show as do toddlers who used to wear tiaras. But the reality TV field has been sorely lacking on the green front … until now. Pivot TV is launching Human Resources based on the wacky crew atTerraCycle, a New Jersey-based upcycling company. Breaking into the world of reality TV may seem like a specious victory for the green movement, but it’s a step. So much media portrays environmentalists as fringey weirdos who knit their own formal wear out of svagnum orawkward nerds so in love with ferns they are no longer capable of normal human relationships. It’s nice to see some of our kind given the good old-fashioned reality TV treatment. There are reasons to believe the show will be awesome: One is this beard, which Pivot had the sense to put on TV. So the show is in good hands. And while reality TV can be pretty formulaic, TerraCycle is used to turning old crap into valuable stuff, so maybe they can work their magic with TV. Human Resources premieres on Aug. 8 at 10 p.m. ET on Pivot.

According to the latest census, there are roughly three times as many reality TV shows as there are people, so pretty much every job you could possibly imagine has a show. There are shows about the high stakes of baking; programs devoted to the thrilling world of long-haultrucking (which somehow has not had a single episode about meth); series on goldfish caretaking; heck, every other gun shop inAmerica has a show (which is a lot of gun shops). Toddlers in tiaras have their own show as do toddlers who used to wear tiaras. But the reality TV field has been sorely lacking on the green front … until now. Pivot TV is launching Human Resources based on the wacky crew atTerraCycle, a New Jersey-based upcycling company. Breaking into the world of reality TV may seem like a specious victory for the green movement, but it’s a step. So much media portrays environmentalists as fringey weirdos who knit their own formal wear out of svagnum orawkward nerds so in love with ferns they are no longer capable of normal human relationships. It’s nice to see some of our kind given the good old-fashioned reality TV treatment. There are reasons to believe the show will be awesome: One is this beard, which Pivot had the sense to put on TV. So the show is in good hands. And while reality TV can be pretty formulaic, TerraCycle is used to turning old crap into valuable stuff, so maybe they can work their magic with TV. Human Resources premieres on Aug. 8 at 10 p.m. ET on Pivot.

Recycle Across America® (RAA), a nonprofit that has developed the first and only society-wide standardized labeling system for recycling bins to help eliminate the public confusion surrounding recycling, has joined forces with Participant Media on a social action campaign called Recycle Right!, focused on transforming recycling and improving the economics and prevalence of sustainable packaging and manufacturing. The campaign is inspired by Participant’s new show “Human Resources,” a reality series following the daily operations and challenges of TerraCycle as it sets out to eliminate waste on a global scale, which premieres August 8 on its television network Pivot.The Recycle Right! campaign offers informational videos, tips and practical solutions – such as standardized recycling labels — to help everyone, well, recycle right and increase the amount of quality raw, recycled materials available to be used by manufacturers looking to lessen their environmental footprint. “We can’t sit idle knowing that millions of tons of valuable recyclable materials, which are easy to convert into new products and packaging, are going to waste every year. Which one of us wants to throw billions of dollars and our environmental wellbeing into landfills? That’s what we’re doing if we’re not recycling right,” said TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. “We’re thrilled to join forces with Participant Media and Recycle Across America to fix the dysfunction of recycling and move the needle toward progress. And we can’t wait for audiences to watch ‘Human Resources’ to see inside our world at TerraCycle, where every day we’re proving that even the most undesirable and traditionally non-recyclable materials can have a new purpose and can be valuable.” Historically there have been thousands of different labels on public area recycling bins, causing confusion and resulting in tons of garbage being thrown in recycling bins each day. A key component of the campaign is expanding the use of standardized recycling labels to help eliminate confusion at the bins and empowering everyone to ‘recycle right.’ The campaign aims to double the amount of standardized labels being used by the end of the year to one million. Use of the standardized labels on recycling bins has been shown to:

• Increase recycling levels by more than 50 percent and significantly reduce the amount of trash thrown in recycling bins.
• Help ensure a consistent quality and quantity of recycled materials, helping keep the cost of recycled raw materials competitive with virgin materials.

“We are incredibly excited to work with two of the most predominant leaders of change in their industries, Participant Media and TerraCycle,” said RAA executive director, Mitch Hedlund. “Worldwide waste is expected to double by 2025 and with the US being the largest producer of waste in the world, it is imperative that we address this issue today. “We need to remind ourselves that it’s not just waste that’s doubling; it’s the use of finite natural resources and generation of excessive CO2 that will also double,” Hedlund continued. “This is why we’re thrilled to work with these companies to advance the use of the standardized labels. It’s a deceivingly simple solution that creates exponential progress — and I think we’re all ready for some progress!” Chad Boettcher, EVP of Social Action and Advocacy at Participant Media said: “We know that recycling is the most important action we can do to improve the environment yet the percentage of valuable materials being recycled has not improved much over the past 17 years. We are eager to work with Recycle Across America and TerraCycle to spread awareness on such a tangible and easy step we can all take in improving the health of our world environmentally and economically.” Today approximately half a million of RAA’s standardized labels are in use throughout the US, Canada and Europe labels by a host of industry leaders and at a variety of locations, such as: NBCUniversal; Hallmark; Kohler; Walt Disney World employee areas; Procter & Gamble manufacturing facilities; SanDisk; AOL; 2,000 US K-12 schools — including all the public schools in Washington, DC; universities including University of Denver, George Mason University and Johns Hopkins University; and thousands of other adopters. RAA and Participant Media aim to continue to expand this reach through Recycle Right!  Efforts to understand and eliminate the confusion around recycling in order to make it the norm is right up there with understanding and eliminating the gap between attitudes and behaviors (and sometimes related), and studies, labeling schemes and campaigns continue to abound.

Recycle Across America (RAA) has joined forces with Participant Media to launch a social action campaign focused on transforming recycling and improving the economics and prevalence of sustainable packaging and manufacturing. The campaign is inspired by Participant’s new show “Human Resources,” premiering Aug. 8 on its television network Pivot. “Human Resources” follows TerraCycle, a company whose mission is to eliminate waste on a global scale. The Recycle Right! campaign offers informational videos, tips and practical solutions — such as standardized recycling labels — to increase the amount of quality raw recycled materials available to be used by manufacturers looking to lessen their environmental footprint. The partners say use of the standardized labels on recycling bins have shown to:

• Increase recycling levels by more than 50 percent and significantly reduces the amount of trash thrown in recycling bins.
• Help ensure a consistent quality and quantity of recycled materials. This helps keep the cost of recycled raw materials competitive with virgin materials.

Many industry leaders have already begun using the labels on their bins, such as: NBCUniversal, Hallmark, Kohler, Walt Disney World employee areas, Procter & Gamble manufacturing, SanDisk, AOL, 2,000 US K-12 schools — including all the public schools in Washington DC, many universities including University of Denver, George Mason University, Johns Hopkins University and thousands of other adopters. Today approximately half a million of RAA’s standardized labels are in use throughout the US, Canada and Europe. In April Terracycle began marketing its Zero Waste Box programto factory managers in a bid to encourage employees to recycle items commonly used on factory floors, including ear plugs and hair nets.