Hoy, TerraCycle es una reconocida compañía internacional de supra reciclaje y reciclaje que recolecta envaseUniversidad de Princeton, TerraCycle, Inc. empezó produciendo fertilizantes orgánicos mediante el embotellado de “excrementos licuados de lombrices” en botellas de refrescos usadas. Desde este comienzo poco prometedor, TerraCycle ha llegado a ser una de las empresas verdes de mayor crecimiento en el mundo.

Earth Day Every Day and MLK Children's Center--- Martin Luther King Children’s Center, a school district before and after school program on the campus of MLK K-8 Elementary School, collects a variety of items for recycling with TerraCycle.  The Children’s Center collected drink pouches, used toothbrushes, empty toothpaste tubes, empty beauty bottles, cheese wrappers along with dairy tub containers and sends them postage paid to TerraCycle.  MLK Children’s Center earns about $.02 per item. TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. TerraCycle’s purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, then a 20-year-old Princeton University freshman, TerraCyle began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid worm poop in used soda bottles. Since then Terracycle has grown into one of the fastest growing green companies in the world. Terracycle is creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable waste.  MLK Children’s Center is just one group of 20 million people collecting waste in over 20 countries. TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market.  The goal is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that today must be sent to a landfill. So far, MLK Children’s Center has sent in 18,146 drink pouches alone. Staff, students and families collect these items from their homes along with collection tubs in the school cafeteria at lunchtime. It’s a great way we celebrate Earth Day everyday! Good for the environment, community and especially the children. Here are some accolades from the students: “Terracycle is cool because we help the environment by recycling our trash.” — Leiomi Gastinell, sixth grader “It’s so easy to save and bring in the items.” — Alyson Eystad, fourth grader “It’s a good way to help the environment and the children’s center without doing anything hard or extreme.” — Elise Ledesma, sixth grader

Candy manufacturer Mars is working to upcycle the trash their products produce. BusinessWorld says that even though “upcycling will first need to prove itself profitable to companies before it can break into mainstream use … some big-name firms are slowly jumping on the bandwagon. In the U.S., a joint effort between TerraCycle and candy manufacturer Mars—the latter aims to cut down its waste by three percent annually—has been producing repurposed packaging from used and surplus wrappers of candies like Twix and Starburst.”

Para fomentar el reciclaje entre los usuarios de los Centros Comunitarios, el Gobierno del Estado y la empresa Terracycle firmaron un convenio de colaboración.

The history of retailers collecting recyclables from their customers is evolving, if slowly. At first this started with small independent grocery stores collecting plastic bags or other items. But todayconsumers are clearly becoming more eco-aware, which is creating a demand for major retailers like Whole Foods Market, Best Buy, and Sur La Table to place collections in their stores. The trend of retailers collecting recyclables started in “crunchy”, more sustainable cities like Portland, Oregon and Denver, Colorado, where there were several small, independent grocers. These were community-based grocery stores where local residents could drop off their recyclables. Inspired by this other communities began collections as well. These collections, however, were not necessarily for recyclables. One collection was Box Tops for Education. Another type of community-based collection is the Paper Retriever Recycling Bin. This dumpster sized recycling bin is a free collection where students can place their paper recyclables – they are often found in school, city and retailer parking lots. Recently, this new trend has been popping up more and more. Major retailers are starting collections for a variety of recyclables and even non-recyclables. Whole Foods Market has several collections. They accept corks from wine bottles, plastics made from #5 propylene, and plastic bags from other retailers. Of course, I periodically check the bins at my local Whole Foods and they are usually fairly empty – even in a relatively affluent and aware consumer base like Princeton, NJ. They also have recycling bins and compost buckets in their cafeteria. Best Buy has an e-waste recycle collection. You can bring in your used electronics to any Best Buy location and they will recycle them for you – however sometimes this service comes at a cost for the consumers. Best Buy also offers other programs to help collect your used electronics. Best Buy will remove your old TV or appliance when you buy a new TV or appliance from them. They will also remove used TVs or appliances from your house for $100, if you are not buying a new TV or appliance from them. The latest major retailer do start a recycle collection is Sur La Table. Sur La Table has partnered with Illy Caffé to collect Illy Caffé’s iperEspresso capsules. The iperEspresso capsules are made of #5 polypropylene, which is collected by only about 5% of municipalities. Illy Caffé wanted to find a way for their customers to enjoy their coffee and still be environmentally friendly. This is why Illy Caffé introduced iperEspresso Capsule Recycle Program. This program allows the capsules to be recycled. There are three ways to recycle the capsules. The first way is for illy a casaSM members. Illy a casa^SM members receive their capsule recycle program as a complimentary service as part of your free membership. The second option is to drop off the capsules at you local Sur La Table. The final option is to buy a recycle kit. If you are not an illy a casa^SM member and there are no Sur La Table locations near you, you can purchase a kit by calling illy Customer Care. There has to be an 80 capsule minimum when sending in your capsules. The demand for more recycling collections in stores is a new concept. Although many people recycle and try to be more eco-friendly, recycling in your grocery store, your electronic store, or your favorite kitchen store is taking green a step further. The question is, are consumers ready for this change? Will they collect their waste and bring it with them to stores? Or box it up to mail it in for recycling? TerraCycle is guessing that enough will! Tom Szaky presented an exlusive i2live webinar entitled: "Turning Waste Packaging Into Massive Equity" on April 17th,2013. Get the transcript here 

HackensackUMC was awarded the 2013 “Partner for Change” Award by Practice Greenhealth, the nation’s leading health care membership community that empowers its members to increase their efficiencies and environmental stewardship while improving patient safety and care. The Award is one of the organization’s Environmental Excellence Awards given each year to honor outstanding environmental achievements in the health care sector. The Partner for Change Award recognizes health care facilities that continuously improve and expand upon their mercury elimination, waste reduction, recycling and source reduction programs. “This award proves that HackensackUMC is committed to eliminating mercury, reducing waste, recycling and preventing pollution, among other environmentally preferable practices,” said Laura Wenger, RN, Executive Director, Practice Greenhealth. “Practice Greenhealth is pleased to recognize them for these efforts.” “We take pride in developing programs to improve the health of our patients, staff and community,” said Robert C. Garrett, president and CEO of the Hackensack University Health Network. “We look forward to working with Practice Greenhealth to further our sustainability efforts and lessen our impact on the environment.” “We’ve done a tremendous job of increasing our recycling rate, implementing state-of-the-art recycling stations on campus, eliminating Styrofoam food ware and becoming the first hospital in country to partner with TerraCycle to recycle packaging and items that typically are not recycled and up cycling them into products” said Deirdre Imus, president and founder of the Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center at HackensackUMC. The Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards were presented in Boston, MA, at CleanMed, THE premier national environmental conference for leaders in health care sustainability.

Le conseil municipal junior rappelle qu’il collecte, au nom de Terracycle-Bic, les vieux instruments d’écriture : tous les stylos à bille, stylos à plume et leurs cartouches d’encre usagées (et non les cartouches d’imprimantes usagées), feutres, porte-mines, correcteurs (en pot, en souris ou liquide sous forme de stylos), marqueurs, effaceurs, surligneurs, de toutes les marques et de toutes les matières (plastique, métal).