TerraCycle has launched a free program to collect and recycle cigarette waste in Canada, including filters, foil and plastic packaging.
The “upcycling” company, which takes tough-to-recycle packaging and turns it into affordable products, will use cigarette waste to make plastic pallets for industry, reducing the need to use wood or virgin plastic. Organic material – the paper and remaining tobacco – will be composted.
TerraCycling? Is this a new form of bicycling? Something only Lance Armstrong would be interested in? No, but it is a fun and rewarding way to join ‘brigades’ of environmental stewards. TerraCycle is an innovative program where organizations are collecting different types of waste that are typically not recycled and are sending them to a collection station that is turning the waste into new recycled products such as park benches and backpacks.
Quase todo mundo já mascou um chiclete pelo menos uma vez na vida. Mas você já parou para pensar o que acontece com ele depois que é jogado fora? A partir de agora, uma das guloseimas favoritas de crianças e adultos podem ter outras utilidades mesmo depois de consumida.
TerraCycle
In nature, waste does not exist. All materials are reused or recycled through natural processes. However, modern human society and technology has created a massive waste issue. Now the irrepressible demand for safe, conveniently packaged consumer goods is annually creating billions of tons of non-recyclable or difficult to recycle waste.
Enter TerraCycle, the ambitious dream of a college freshman turned sustainable business pioneer, a company that makes eco-friendly, affordable consumer products from waste. By using the trillions of pieces of packaging that go to landfill every year to build high quality consumer goods, TerraCycle aims to replace the need to create virgin materials, like new plastics and textiles, by showing the world it is more sustainable and more profitable to use waste as a raw material.
TerraCycle started in 2001 as a simple organic fertilizer company. Two college students harvested worm compost, or Worm Poop as it became fondly known, and liquefied it into a completely organic, ultra-effective fertilizer. However, with no money they could not buy the packaging they needed to start selling their fertilizer. Undiscouraged, they began to bottle their liquid fertilizer in used soda bottles they collected from recycling bins, unwittingly creating the world’s first product made from AND packaged entirely in waste!
Eleven years later TerraCycle has grown from a two-man, dorm room operation to an international leader in the field of ‘eco-capitalism’ and ‘upcycling’ and is starting to prove to the world that you can make a difference and a profit at the same time. However, it takes more than an army of worms to change the world. TerraCycle’s founders realized the revolutionary idea they discovered was not Worm Poop, but using waste materials which have no value to make products that are both sustainable and affordable.
Today, TerraCycle partners with major consumer goods manufacturers such as Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mars, Kashi, Kimberly-Clark, SC Johnson, Nestle, L’Oreal and many more to run a massive network of individuals, schools and organizations who get paid to help collect and upcycled non-recyclable packaging. From drink pouches to chip bags to candy wrappers to diaper packaging, TerraCycle and its partners pay two cents per unit of returned packaging and the collected material is combined with other waste streams and upcycled into a wide range of consumer products.
TerraCycle is constantly looking for ambitious people to support their Team.
Ever wonder how you can wear your cereal? That’s right.
Wear. You have a perfectly good bag when you finish your Malt-O-Meal cereal, so do something cool with it!
Our friends at
TerraCycle think this way every day of their lives. That’s why we love them. They take what most people think of as trash and make them into treasures.
Hamilton Township in conjunction with TerraCycle recently launched “Chip in for Change,” an initiative aimed at reducing the amount of chip bags that goes into local landfills each year. Through October, Hamilton residents will attempt to recycle at least ten percent of consumed chip bags. For every 50,000 chip bags collected, $250 will be donated to a local charity or non-profit. If the program is successful, TerraCycle will look to expand it to other New Jersey towns.
Ever wonder how you can wear your cereal? That’s right.
Wear. You have a perfectly good bag when you finish your Malt-O-Meal cereal, so do something cool with it!
Our friends at
TerraCycle think this way every day of their lives. That’s why we love them. They take what most people think of as trash and make them into treasures.
The TerraCycle team has come up with some pretty neat DIY project ideas using empty Malt-O-Meal bags, like this bracelet. It doesn’t take long to make, and your friends will be green with envy (literally!) when they see the end result of some good ‘ol sustainable living.
The next time you snack on your favorite potato, tortilla or corn chips,don’t throw away the bag!
The folks at Trenton-based TerraCycle are teaming up with Hamilton Township officials like Mayor John Bencivengo to “Chip In For Change.”
Dozens of collection sites across Hamilton (like the library, the YMCA, and certain stores) are your places to deposit empty chip bags so that they may be recycled, or even up-cycled.
