Across the country people are starting to notice the unpleasant sight of cigarette butts. To help solve the problem of cigarette butts polluting the environment, Terracycle partnered with tobacco companies to create a recycling program, embracing a partner often shunned by the sustainable community. But together they created the “butt box” to allow people to recycle butts, solving a major trash issue (Terracycle’s goal). The trick, as Tom Szaky of Terracycle says, is to be upfront with the public about your issues and how you’re solving them: “One of the most important things brands can do is acknowledge they have an issue and say what they are going to do about it. … This is empowerment.”

The issue of sustainability never seems to be far from the minds of cosmetics manufacturers, and L’Oreal USA’s latest green goal has been realized as its Garnier subsidiary develops the first community garden made from non-recyclable post-consumer beauty waste.

The Garnier Green Garden has been implemented in partnership with recycling firm TerraCycle and GrowNYC, a firm that sets up environmental programs, as part of the beauty brand’s long-term goal to find greener, more sustainable solutions for beauty care products. "We're thrilled to have created a program that has the capacity to impact the quality of life for an entire community," said David Greenberg, President of Maybelline New York-Garnier-Essie. "Our commitment to sustainability isn't just about keeping packaging waste from personal care and cosmetics products out of landfills, but it's also about reusing that waste and providing a foundation for greener living." The beauty waste to be used was collected by Garnier's Personal Care and Beauty Brigade Program, a free fundraising effort that pays for every piece of waste collected and returned to TerraCycle. Waste not, want not The collected beauty waste, which would otherwise be destined for landfills, consists of non-recyclable hair care, skin care and cosmetic packaging that have since been recycled by TerraCycle to create many of the plastic components being installed in the new garden. The garden is located at 237 East 104th Street, and is estimated to yield 1,500 pounds of vegetables a year. Garnier spokesperson Bridget Moynahan was presented for the ground-breaking ceremony and activities, as well as representatives from Garnier, L'Oreal USA, TerraCycle, and GrowNYC. "We are pleased to partner with our like-minded friends at Garnier who are providing the support needed to restore this community hub for all Harlem residents,” says Marcel Van Ooyen, Executive Director of GrowNYC. "Through the Personal Care and Beauty Brigade, the garden will be a permanent testament to the impact recycling can have on a community and in our world," adds Tom Szaky, TerraCycle CEO.

The Briar Woods High School Freshman Student Council Association in Ashburn and Potowmack Elementary School in Sterling both won $500 grants from Keep Virginia Beautiful, a program aimed at improving Virginia’s environment. Briar Woods’ students will use the money to transform an unused courtyard into an educational space for students, a design that earned them a place in the Beautification category. They intend to plant native trees and shrubs as well as add seating for students. The garden will be maintained by the students and serve as an inspiration for onlookers.   Potowmack Elementary will put the grant money toward expanding its lunchroom recycling program. The students, staff and parents plan to purchase recycling bins to segregate their recyclable waste. They will then send the waste to Terracycle, a company that recycles waste and makes new products from it. Keep Virginia Beautiful is awarding grants through the month of June for their “30 grants in 30 days” event. To participate, government, nonprofit and service organizations can apply for one of three categories: Beautification, Litter and Recycling. For more information, go to www.keepvirginiabeautiful.org.  

 

Dans le cadre d’un projet d’avenir, deux classes de seconde du lycée agricole La Cazotte s’investissent plus particulièrement dans le devenir des déchets afin d’être les porte-paroles au sein de l’établissement. Ce projet sera mené jusqu’à leur année de terminale bac professionnel.

TerraCycle started in 2001 as a simple organic fertilizer company. Founder Tom Szaky, then a freshman at Princeton University, saw an opportunity to use discarded food scraps from the cafeteria to make a product that had value. He fed the leftovers to an army of worms to harvest worm compost, or Worm Poop as it became fondly known, a completely organic, ultra-effective fertilizer. With no money to buy packaging, Tom bottled the liquid fertilizer in used soda bottles collected from recycling bins, unwittingly creating the world’s first product made from AND packaged entirely in waste. The idea of using would-be waste material to make new products grew. Today, TerraCycle partners with major consumer goods manufacturers such as Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mars, Colgate-Palmolive, L’Oreal, Method and many more to collect almost 50 kinds of non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle packaging, such as drink pouches, chip bags, candy wrappers, toothpaste tubes, cosmetics and household cleaner packaging. For each piece of waste sent to TerraCycle through this Brigade program, the collector earns points that can be put toward charity gifts or converted to cash and paid to any school or non-profit. The programs are completely free to join and all shipping costs are pre-paid. The collected material is upcycled or recycled into a wide range of consumer products. By using some of the millions of pieces of packaging that go to landfill every year to make innovative consumer goods, TerraCycle hopes to reduce the need to use virgin materials and show the world it is more sustainable and profitable to use waste as a raw material. Since 2007, more than 90,000 locations and 29 million people have gotten involved in the Brigade program and are helping to collect trash in homes, schools, offices and community buildings across the country. More than 2.5 billion pieces of pre- and post-consumer packaging have been collected and over $4.5 million has been donated to schools and non-profits. For more information, please visit: TerraCycle.com and TerraCycleShop.com