It's good for the environment and Planet Earth that creative minds continue to produce new and innovative ideas... and this company is on the cutting edge. TerraCycle, www.terracycle.net is responsible for diverting massive amounts of waste from landfills and incinerators, both of which produce carbon and greenhouse gases adding to pollution of air quality. By recycling this waste into new products... the need for new packaging is greatly reduced or eliminated entirely. Think about it... as TerraCycle says: " garbage doesn't exist in Nature."  If we consider "garbage" to be a combination of both organic and human-made materials... it is the latter which is the problem in modern-day cultures. An important distinction in the equation is the difference between "recycling" and "up-cycling."  For example... to "recycle" a waste product involves breaking it down and remaking the re-useable materials into a new product with different shape and form... whereas to "up-cycle" a waste product is to retain it's form and shape and re-use it for a different, useful purpose. Up-cycling therefore, can be described as: "using every aspect of waste as value."

You as packaging designers manage some amazing feats: Simultaneously satisfy picky company leaders, fickle consumers and just plain crazy marketing people! You’re to be applauded–it’s a tough balancing act. But I have something further for you to consider. Your packaging, for the most part, has one use. What you create encompassed countless hours of meetings, designs, redesigns, factory tooling, wrestling matches and so on. It’s the front line of how your company’s products are seen in the world. It’s the final leg of the marathon that began with coming up with the idea for the product, perhaps testing it out with consumers, a final iteration chosen, then finished when someone decides to grab one of your products off the shelf and buy it.

You as packaging designers manage some amazing feats: Simultaneously satisfy picky company leaders, fickle consumers and just plain crazy marketing people! You’re to be applauded–it’s a tough balancing act. But I have something further for you to consider. Your packaging, for the most part, has one use. What you create encompassed countless hours of meetings, designs, redesigns, factory tooling, wrestling matches and so on. It’s the front line of how your company’s products are seen in the world. It’s the final leg of the marathon that began with coming up with the idea for the product, perhaps testing it out with consumers, a final iteration chosen, then finished when someone decides to grab one of your products off the shelf and buy it. But once the wrapping’s off, the bottle’s empty, the usefulness is done, that’s the end of the story. Some of it gets recycled. A lot of it doesn’t. Either way, all that brand equity you’ve put into the product is being wasted. Say again? Yes, when your packaging has no end of life solution, it’s clumsily being made for you, typically. Terracycle since the start has been about providing one that companies have much more control over: Upcycling it into new products, which often directly use the packaging in its original form in durable goods, retaining brand equity for much longer then one use. Designing for recyclability is a noble idea and one to be encouraged but, with a fairly limited range of materials, getting recycled in the U.S., it’s just not always possible. Or, in the case of food packaging, safe. It’s time, both for the sake of saving resources (financial and environmental) to design for reuse where possible, and upcycling by companies like TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net>  where it’s not. In both cases, you’re benefitting the company due to extended presence in a consumer’s life, showing you’re out for more than just the sale, and you’ve done your part to keep waste out of the landfill, or worse, littering the ground. Is there a downside to changing/expanding the way you think about packaging? It could cost more. It could take additional time and resources to implement. In the case of SunChips <http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/510820-Frito_Lay_withdraws_noisy_compostable_SunChips_bag.php> , it could cause consumer backlash. Yes, sometimes we’re great at coming up with reasons why not. In this economy and any time really, I suggest we all get much less skilled in that arena, and start finding ways to say yes. To better packaging solutions that use less, save more, serve customers just as well, and live on beyond first use. It’s, in my opinion, the only sensible thing to do. What are your thoughts? Being in the packaging design trenches, where are some opportunities for improvement? Where are the road bumps? Where are the emerging solutions? What are some recent successes to emulate, learn from? Jump into the comments, below.

by Tom Szaky of TerraCycle, Trenton NJ Student brigades collect hard-to-recycle trash for TerraCycle. Photo credit: TerraCycle 2010 may have been a rocky year in many ways for a lot of us out there, but something amazing happened in the last three months of the year: Public schools in New Jersey on average doubled how much waste packaging they collected and sent to TerraCycle! What was the catalyst, you say? A surplus of Halloween candy wrappers perhaps? All the packaging from holiday parties and gifts? Nice guesses, but no. It was cash.   Walmart Foundation <http://walmartstores.com/CommunityGiving/203.aspx>  sponsored a contest with us called Trash To Cash <http://www.facebook.com/TerraCycle?v=app_10442206389>  that rewarded the top 6 collecting Brigades <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/www.terracycle.net/brigades>  at New Jersey public schools with grants between $5000-$50,000 dollars, a total of $125,000. The numbers were astounding: The lowest of those winners sent us 22,921 pieces of packaging! The highest clocked in at 52,640. This, for 2 months of collections. Mind boggling, how much trash they helped divert from the landfill. On many levels, the program was a great success. Not only was a large amount of trash diverted, it nearly doubled earlier figures. Not only is there money going to benefit public schools that can surely use it, engagement has increased among the Brigades. Perhaps most significantly, there is new incentive for schools to jump onto the Brigade train, further increasing both the amount and the locations that difficult to recycle packaging is being prevented from ending in a landfill. Hopefully, the momentum created by the Trash To Cash contest continues on long afterwords. Still, toubling questions remain. What does it say about our society if it takes money to motivate the average person to such levels of behavior? Why did a noisy compostable bag motivate people to protest loudly <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/big-lessons-from-the-sunchips-packaging-fiasco.php> , forcing Sunchips to roll back to non-recyclable, non-compostable packaging, for all but one of its products? With changing climate, ecomonic shifts, and dwindling resources, there will need to be some major changes in people's lifestyles. Will they be willing or capable? Is money going to have to be the motivator? Readers, I'd like to hear from you. Is money the answer to a rapid, durable increase in eco friendly behavior? Have you seen it working elsewhere? And if not, what other paths to change have you seen out there that are working? Got a new, as yet to be done idea to share? Let's hear it!

México, D.F.- Con una inversión cercana a los 6 millones de dólares, Tang lanza a acción Movimiento Tang, con la cual pretende promover en los niños la importancia del cuidado al medio ambiente. Así lo indica Charles Chamouton, director de mercadotecnia de Kraft Foods, durante una conferencia de prensa, en la que presentó los pormenores del esfuerzo mercadotécnico, acompañado por Ernesto Herrera, director general de Reforestamos México y Michael Waas, vicepresidente global de Terracycle.

A TerraCycle, que se foca na reciclagem de produtos.

Re: Kerrie L. Cortez’ Feb. 16 letter, “Turning trash into cash”: I am writing in response to Kerrie Cortez, who negatively spoke about the article on Ladera Elementary's recycling efforts titled "Recycling program takes off at Thousand Oaks school" People who have negative energy and comments are wasting both their time as well as the time of people who read this paper. I don't know the motives for the response by Kerrie Cortez, but ours at the school are to reduce waste in our overflowing landfills. We are as parents trying to do the right thing for our children by teaching them to respect the earth and the earth's resources. We are doing something positive, not negative, for the earth and for the children. Had you done some research, you would have found out that there are no recycling centers for ziplock bags, juice pouches, chip bags and such on the West Coast. We are fortunate enough to have a company that will facilitate our waste and transform it into something useful. Not to mention it is also generating money to our school at no cost - simply our time. This is a great opportunity for others to participate in such a resourceful organization. Terracycle has brought our school close to $1,000 since we began participating in the program. Mind you, that was $1,000 our school did not have, especially in the extreme deficit our state is currently in. We take pride in helping our children learn that the Earth is not a big trash receptacle, but something that we need to respect and take care of. So next time before you write a comment and say someone is leaving a "negative footprint,” do your research first. - Irene Nelson, Read more:  http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/feb/21/recycling-critic/?partner=yahoo_feeds#ixzz1EcRXr8ml  - vcstar.com

Tom Szaky über den Kern seiner Geschäftsidee ... über Müll: Müll haben sich Menschen ausgedacht, meint der Gründer von Terracycle. Vor 70 bis 80 Jahren gab es ihn gar nicht in dem Umfang, wie er heute existiert. Die Konsumgesellschaft sei schuld, sagt der 28-Jährige. Sein Unternehmen Terracyle verarbeitet Müll zu neuen Produkten: Taschen aus Einkaufstüten, Kühlboxen aus Bonbon-Verpackung oder Klobrillen aus Trinktüten. Albe Zakes von Terra Cycle steht vor 1500 Chipstüten - wiederverwertet und verarbeitet zu einer großen Mülltonne. Nur eines von 500 Produkten aus dem Sortiment. Die alten Verpackungen sammeln Konsumenten, die ihn portofrei einschicken und dafür sogar Geld bekommen. Ein paar Cent pro Flasche, Tüte, Verpackung - die dann jedoch nur für gute Zwecke gespendet werden können. Albe Zakes: "Der Großteil der Getränke- und Nahrungsmittel-Verpackungen in den USA ist nicht recycelbar. Verpackungen für Süßigkeiten, Kekse, Chips, Müslitüten und so weiter. Partner von TerraCycle bieten ihren Konsumenten die Wahl an. Ihre Verpackung muss kein Müll bleiben." Zu den Partnern gehören neben dem Lebensmittelriesen Kraft längst andere Branchengrößen wie der Schokoriegelhersteller Mars, der Kosmetikkonzern L'Oreal und der Post-it-Hersteller 3M. Sie zahlen die Kosten und die Logistik des Systems und bekommen dafür Werbung - durch ihre Marke auf den neuen Produkten - und ein grünes Image mit dazu. Tom Szaky: "So eine Tasche machen wir. Das Material: gepresste Plastiktüten. Die Tasche kostet im Laden fünf Dollar. Der Einzelhandel kauft die Taschen für zwei Dollar beim Produzenten. Der Produzent kauft das Material von mir und zahlt eine Gebühr für die Nutzung des TerraCycle Logos. Alle machen ihr normales Geld - außer, dass das Fabrikat nicht Kunststoff aus China ist, sondern unser einzigartiges Material." Mehr als zwölf Millionen Menschen in den USA sammeln bereits für Terracycle, immerhin fast fünf Prozent der Bevölkerung. Ganze Schulen haben Sammelprogramme gestartet, um Umweltbewusstsein zu lehren. Zwei Milliarden Verpackungen wurden bereits verarbeitet. Und TerraCycle hat jetzt schon Büros in elf Ländern - auch in Europa. "Kraft waren die ersten, die uns nach Europa gelotst haben: Sie wollten das Programm nach Großbritannien bringen, dann Schweden, dann Deutschland. Es ist aufregend, dass es gar nicht wir sind, die Expansionsideen haben, sondern unsere global tätigen Partner, die die Idee überall hinbringen wollen." Jetzt kommt Terracycle auch nach Deutschland. Allerdings soll im Musterland der Mülltrennung nicht das gesammelt werden, wofür es schon erfolgreiche Recyclinglösungen gibt, wie Glas, Papier oder organische Abfälle. Terracycle geht es um Müll, der in Deutschland bisher noch in Verbrennungsanlagen landet. Klaus Hillebrand vom Grünen Punkt in Köln ist skeptisch. Er bezweifelt, dass in Deutschland die Mitmachanreize sowohl auf Seiten der Partnerunternehmen als auch auf Seiten der Konsumenten ausreichen. In einem Statement von ihm heißt es: "Die Verpackungsverordnung verpflichtet alle Hersteller von verpackten Produkten, die verwendeten Verpackungen bei einem dualen System zu beteiligen, damit Recycling und Entsorgung gesichert sind. Es macht daher in Deutschland keinen Sinn, ein weiteres Sammelsystem aufzubauen, und es hätte auch keine Aussicht auf Erfolg." Zudem gibt es in Deutschland bereits neun private Wettbewerber auf dem Markt der dualen Systeme. Auch das Prinzip, aus Müll direkt Produkte zu machen, wird schon umgesetzt. Hillebrand schreibt weiter: "TerraCycle bietet außerdem keine flächendeckende Entsorgung überall in jedem Haushalt in Deutschland, sondern sammelt nur ganz bestimmte Verpackungen an ganz bestimmten Orten ein, zum Beispiel in Schulen oder Kantinen. Das hat nur in solchen Ländern Aussicht auf Erfolg, in denen es keine bestehende und funktionierende Recyclinginfrastruktur gibt." TerraCycle wird sein Glück in Deutschland trotzdem versuchen. Zumindest die Partnerunternehmen unterstützen die Idee. Und mit Caprisonne und dem Stifthersteller BIC haben zwei bereits fest zugesagt.

MORRIS TWP. ‑ Woodland Avenue School’s Green Team was given a $10,000 grant award as  winners of the “Trash to Cash Collection Contest” sponsored by the Walmart Foundation and TerraCycle, part of $125,000 in school grants the foundation is handing out.   The contest was free and open to all New Jersey public schools. The schools that raised the most money through TerraCycle's Brigade programs.  The contest began Oct. 1 and ran until Dec. 15. Combined 448 schools in New Jersey helped divert over 1.6 million pieces of packaging in fewer than three months. Walmart Foundation partnered with TerraCycle in order to encourage more schools to get involved in the Brigade program, a socially and environmentally beneficial fund-raising and educational initiative that pays schools to recycle. The hope was that by adding the additional incentive of schools grants, schools would collect more waste, diverting as much non-recyclable material as possible from landfill. "We are extremely pleased with the level of participation in the Trash to Cash Collection Contest,” Jennifer Hoehn, senior manager of Public Affairs for Walmart said. “During a period of just over two months, TerraCycle and Walmart successfully diverted over 1.6 million pieces of waste with the help of New Jersey Brigade participants increasing collections by almost 200 percent during the contest.” For more information, go to www.terracycle.net <http://www.terracycle.net> .

Wie wäre es mit Lautsprecherboxen aus Chipstüten? Oder Klobrillen aus alten Bonbon-Verpackungen? Aus Müll ein neues Produkt machen - mit diesem einfachen Prinzip versucht das junge Unternehmen "Terracycle", den Amerikanern ihre Wegwerf-Mentalität auszutreiben - und startet damit jetzt auch in Deutschland. Miriam Braun stellt die Firma aus New Jersey vor.