ESCANABA, Mich. (WJMN)- Jessica Garber’s environmental club at Escanaba High School is new this year and with it being the Halloween season, the club is incorporating that into saving the planet.   “It was started by Rubicon Global,” said Garber. “They’re out of Atlanta, Georgia and basically they’re sending boxes that come from Terra Cycle to 450 schools across the nation in 49 states and kids can recycle their candy wrappers there.”   “There’s like millions of wrappers all over the world now an we need to like recycle it instead of just throwing it away because it builds up quickly,” said sophomore, Gabrielle Chouinard.   The group is also getting students at Lemmer Elementary involved by asking them to collect wrappers.   “So when they inherit this world too, they would know better about how to keep the environment safe from all of this pollution,” said junior, Alan Koszka.   People would like to recycle their candy wrappers can drop them off at Escanaba High School. The club is also asking for plastic bags for their next project. That collection is from November 15th to April 15th.   As the new organization continues to grow, they’ve also implemented recycling bins for bottles in the school.   “I always wanted to do something for the environment because there is climate change and stuff is changing so we need to do something about this and start recycling,” said Chouinard.

Gerber, the early childhood nutrition leader, has partnered with international recycling company TerraCycle® to help give hard-to-recycle baby food packaging a new life. The two companies share values around eliminating waste and support the recovery of hard-to-recycle baby food packaging on a national scale.   Participation in the program is easy – parents can simply sign up on the Gerber Recycling Program page at terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gerber and mail in packaging that is not municipally recyclable using a prepaid shipping label. Once collected, the packaging is cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded to make new recycled products.   “Through this free recycling program, Gerber is offering parents an easy way to divert waste from landfills by providing a responsible way to dispose of certain hard-to-recycle baby food packaging,” said TerraCycle CEO and founder, Tom Szaky. “By collecting and recycling these items, families can demonstrate their respect for the environment not only through the products that they choose for their children, but also with how they dispose of the packaging.”   For every pound of packaging waste sent to TerraCycle through the Gerber Recycling Program, collectors can earn $1 to donate to a non-profit, school or charitable organization of their choice.   This partnership is one of many steps toward Gerber's goal to achieve 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025. “We’re thrilled to partner with TerraCycle as part of our broader sustainable packaging efforts,” said Gerber president and CEO Bill Partyka. “We know every parent’s top priority is to ensure a healthy, happy future for their baby. Our commitment to sustainability is rooted in giving parents a hand in making their baby’s future that much brighter.”

As the recycling environment continues to change, municipalities across the U.S. are modifying their recycling initiatives – by decreasing, increasing, or changing their processes based on commodity pricing and consumer behavior.     According to Brett Stevens, global vice president, material sales and procurement at Terra Cycle, one of the main instigators causing the change in municipalities’ recycling program is commodity pricing on items such as plastic, clear glass and uncoated cardboard. These prices have been low for quite some time – mostly because the reprocessors and/or end-users of those materials have issues with product contamination.   “As packaging construction has gotten more complicated, the contamination levels in recycling streams have gone up,” Stevens said. “This has a ripple effect on the remainder of the supply chain and the end-markets for these materials suffer as a result. At a certain point, it stops making economic sense to sort out and process certain streams that were collected for recycling because the value retrieved on the back end does not cover the costs on the front end. “   Some municipalities, such as those in the state of Michigan, are ramping up their recycling programs. So why the discrepancy? As Stevens explained, some municipalities are using grant money or private funds to act as a subsidy to municipal recycling programs. This allows economic factors described above to have less of an impact on the operation, and allows for these recycling programs to continue as-is or even scale up in some capacity.   “Any changes to recycling programs are implemented to improve quality and consistency of the streams, improve the economics associated with performing sortation and processing work, or increase the possibility of a viable end market,” Stevens said.   Evolving Strategies   The City of Sierra Vista, Arizona ceased its mixed recyclables curbside collection on July 1, 2019 and started a staffed drop-off facility, which accepts recyclable materials from anyone, not just city residents. The facility is open six days a week, for six hours. Here, avid recyclers can drop off mixed or presorted glass, plastics #1 and #2, aluminum and steel cans, and corrugated cardboard, where staff and Department of Corrections Workers sort the recyclables into separate bins. The city also moved its glass recycling drop-off bins to the same location, so now they have a “one stop drop” facility for accepted recyclable materials.   “We offer a recycling service because it is the right thing to do from an environmental standpoint,” said Judy Hector, marketing and communications manager with the city of Sierra Vista, Arizona. “The buyer we work with can provide documentation that materials we provide to them are actually being recycled instead of dumped in a landfill.”   As Hector explained, Sierra Vista provides residential and commercial curbside trash collection, which is taken to a transfer station owned by Cochise County. The city pays a tipping fee to the county. The waste is then transferred to the county owned landfill.   “Before we started the curbside collection, city trucks picked up trash twice a week. After starting the curbside program, we launched a ‘1 and 1’ program, where the second weekly collection was reserved for picking up recyclables,” Hector said. “After ceasing the curbside collection, we reverted to a twice-weekly trash pickup.”   So what was the biggest instigator of the change for Sierra Vista? According to Hector, aside from the global collapse of the recycling market, the biggest instigator was contamination in the mixed recycling stream. In Sierra Vista, an aggressive education program early on helped prevent quite a lot of contamination, but the recyclables were mixed with other communities’ recyclables, where contamination was about 50 percent, so the overall contamination was significant.   “By hand sorting materials that are dropped off, we are able to achieve nearly zero percent contamination, which increased the value of each load,” Hector said.   Another instigator was the tipping fee. When the city of Sierra Vista started the curbside program, Cochise County was able to sell the recyclables. Once global demand dropped, the county began charging the city $64 a ton to dump recyclables. As Hector explained, by diverting some of the waste to the drop-off program, the city is able to reduce its overall tipping fee expense while recouping some of the drop-off facility expenses through the sale of clean recyclables.   “Once they understood that we’re not reducing service, homeowners have responded positively to the change overall,” Hector said. “Our most grateful, and largest volume recyclers are from outside of Sierra Vista, where recycling has not been offered in the past. Our challenge in gaining acceptance of the change was educating the public about the global supply of recyclable materials, what is actually being recycled by buyers, and the plummeting demand.”   Although the Sierra Vista has made an innovative attempt to continue recycling, they are still facing challenges. “I think any municipality, particularly ones removed from large markets, will face them as well,” Hector said. “Our greatest challenge with the drop-off facility is the operation cost versus the revenue from the sale of clean recyclables. While we’re able to keep our labor costs low with DOC workers, and there was really no infrastructure to build other than a shade shelter, we are faced with expensive hauling costs to transport recyclables to buyers 80 miles away in Tucson.”   The greatest volume of recyclables that Sierra Vista collects is plastic bottles. “We are overwhelmed with them,” Hector said. “Currently we are hauling two 40-yard roll offs of plastic a month, each of which contains about 32,200 single-use plastic containers. And, unfortunately, the market price for plastic is minimal.”   Another challenge Sierra Vista is facing is the volume of corrugated cardboard. As the home to the U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca, Sierra Vista has a very transient population, which is resulting in a lot of cardboard waste. As such, the city is looking at setting up a free box service, where they would set aside the better moving boxes for people to pick up.   “Not only will this reduce the volume and weight of boxes, it emphasizes the ‘reuse’ part of the 3Rs,” Hector said. “We’re waiting for Public Works to work out the logistics for this.”   Jennifer McClintock, public information officer, City of Oklahoma City Utilities Department, also said Oklahoma City recently modified its recycling program.   “Our current program is one we transitioned to in July 2018, alongside our solid waste contractor Waste Management,” McClintock said. At that time, Oklahoma City converted from a weekly 18-gallon open bin program to a large cart single-stream program that is picked up every other week.   “This not only affords our 195,000 eligible households the opportunity to recycle more, but also adds cardboard and paper board cartons into the mix of items we accept, increasing our overall volume of items recycled,” McClintock said. “It’s also cut down on the potential for contractor employee injuries since carts are picked up using trucks with automated side arms, and has cut down significantly on neighborhood trash since the carts have lids, and the items are no longer susceptible to being blown around in Oklahoma winds.”   For some of Oklahoma City’s rural customers who are not eligible for curbside recycling pick-up, the city has built two new drop-off centers that are conveniently located near easy-to-access intersections.   “Fees for our recycling services are bundled in with our regular weekly trash pick-up and monthly bulky waste, so all customers pay the same flat monthly fee for solid waste services and there is no extra charge for our regular recycling service,” McClintock said.   Later this year, Oklahoma City intends to offer a second cart for its more enthusiastic recyclers upon demand. They will charge a minimal fee for this second cart, but the overall program and pick-up will remain the same.   So why the change on Oklahoma City’s part? Quite simply, they heard the need from their customers for some time that they were ready for a better program, but from a logistics standpoint, the city wanted to take a more pragmatic approach.   “We considered first the impact a larger program would have in extending the life of our landfills, in addition to the significant increase in the amount of cardboard we were collecting due to the popularity of online shopping,” McClintock said. “Those two factors, combined with the increased demand from our customers for enhanced services, led us to reconsider how to change our service delivery model to one that not only encouraged more people to recycle, but also divert more recyclable materials away from our limited landfill space.”   McClintock said that overall, the changes have been very positive. “We had a lot of eager recyclers and are now seeing people who were hesitant to recycle in the small bin program because of the wind now embrace recycling fully,” McClintock said. “We have about 40 percent participation overall, which we hope to improve upon with continued education and outreach.”   As for what the future holds, Stevens said we need better education among consumers regarding what goes into their collection bins, more infrastructure in the U.S. to improve economics, and an increased level of demand champions who are committed to using recycled materials in their products and packaging.   “This will help to stabilize the costs associated with recycling supply chains and provide a more predictable return on investment,” Stevens said. “This will then re-stabilize municipal programs.”  

Published in the November 2019 Edition

Thema Optical, an Italian manufacturer of custom made eyewear with a U.S. factory, has begun a new recycling program in partnership with international recycling leader TerraCycle®. Thema manufactures made-to-measure, bespoke eyewear through its patented 3D Acetate Technology, in which every design is “sculpted.”   Thema creates unique collections that reflect the consumer’s personality without compromising sustainability. During production, some acetate waste is leftover in the manufacturing process. With the help of TerraCycle, Thema will recycle the excess acetate so that it can be processed into sheets and used to make new acetate products.   TerraCycle specializes in collecting and re-purposing hard-to-recycle waste through a variety of platforms, including large-scale recycling, which helps manufacturing facilities like Thema recycle large volumes of waste.  

Published in the November 2019 Edition

TERRACYCLE REPORTS SECOND QUARTER 2019 RESULTS

Financials   TerraCycle US Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of international recycling leader TerraCycle, Inc., announced financial results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2019. Financial Highlights:   •Revenue rose to $11.2 million representing a 16 percent year-over-year growth over Q2 2018 revenues of $9.5 million. •Net income more than doubled to $1.8 million, marking a 67 percent year-over-year growth over Q2 2018 net income of $603,000. •TerraCycle’s Regulation A capital raise is approaching $10 million.   Second Quarter Operational Highlights:   •TerraCycle has attracted investment in its Regulation A offering from ITOCHU Corporation, a 100 year old, $50 billion revenue Japanese trading company. ITOCHU, one of the largest brokers of plastic worldwide, will work with TerraCycle to expand the market for post-consumer plastics, and in particular to develop and sell plastics that come from generally non-recycled waste streams. •TerraCycle issued the first annual cash dividend paid in the company’s history, totaling roughly $54,000 or $2.09 per share representing a yield of 2.09 percent, to shareholders that invested in the company’s successful Regulation A capital raise. •During the first two quarters of 2019, TerraCycle surpassed the prior year’s total number of new contracts and programs. •The company continues to invest in its work force, increasing its U.S. based staff by 10 percent over the prior year.   “Our mission at TerraCycle has always been to eliminate waste, recycle the unrecyclable and use our innovative business solutions to minimize human impact on the planet,” said TerraCycle chief executive officer Tom Szaky. “During the course of our 18 year history, we’ve successfully translated our passion for what we do into an established company built on a strong financial foundation with sustained earnings and growth.”   Using third party logistics and facilities, TerraCycle converts collected waste into raw materials that are sold to and used by manufacturers to create new products. Examples of waste streams collected and recycled by TerraCycle include chip bags, coffee capsules, cigarette butts, oral care, beauty care, writing utensils and over 100 other waste streams in the U.S.   Published in the November 2019 Edition

Rubicon Global announced that the company has launched a Halloween campaign designed to help elementary and middle-school teachers across the United States educate their students on the importance of recycling and keeping candy wrappers out of landfills. The campaign is in keeping with the company’s B Corp mission to end waste.   According to industry data, $2.6 billion will be spent on candy in 2019⁽¹⁾, and Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy⁽²⁾ for Halloween.   Throughout the month of October, Rubicon will be running its first ever “Trick or Trash” campaign, offering teachers in elementary and middle schools across the United States a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle for students to discard their Halloween candy wrappers within. All of these items are being provided free of charge⁽³⁾.   “We believe this campaign can be a catalyst for the next generation to recycle more and reduce waste in our world,” said Nate Morris, Founder and CEO of Rubicon. “Our hope is this program is a great addition to everyone’s Halloween festivities while providing teachers with a curriculum with which to educate students on how to develop positive recycling habits.”   “TerraCycle’s mission has always been to ‘Eliminate the Idea of Waste’ and we’ve proven that solutions do exist for items that may seem difficult to recycle,” said Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “Rubicon not only shares our commitment but has taken it to the next level by spearheading the ‘Trick or Trash’ Halloween campaign to reduce the impact of candy and snack wrappers on the environment and help pave the way for a greener future.”   Rubicon Global is a technology company that powers a digital marketplace, provides a suite of SaaS products for waste, recycling, and smart city solutions, and collects and analyzes data for businesses and governments worldwide. Using technology to help turn businesses into more sustainable enterprises and neighborhoods into greener and smarter places to live and work, Rubicon’s mission is to end waste in all of its forms by helping its partners find economic value in their waste streams and confidently execute on their sustainability goals. The company is a Certified B Corporation, affirming that Rubicon meets the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance and aligns its business with purpose and social good. Through its technology, Rubicon is transforming the entire category of waste and recycling.   Teachers can download the lesson plan immediately upon sign-up. After completing the sign-up, a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box will be shipped to their school. Once delivered, teachers can simply set up the box in their classroom, cafeteria, or hallway, and encourage the students to deposit all of their candy wrappers in the box. Once the box is full, teachers can simply close the box, attached the prepaid shipping label, and ship it off free of charge.

Adding to a growing list of large scale recycling partnerships, international Trenton-based recycling company TerraCycle and early childhood nutrition leader Gerber, have partnered to help eliminate waste by re-purposing baby packaging. Rooted in Gerber and TerraCycle’s shared values around eliminating waste, the partnership supports the recovery of hard-to-recycle baby food packaging on a national scale.   Participation in the program is easy – parents can simply sign up on the Gerber Recycling Program page at https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gerber and mail in packaging that is not municipally recyclable using a prepaid shipping label. Once collected, the packaging is cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded to make new recycled products.   “Through this free recycling program, Gerber is offering parents an easy way to divert waste from landfills by providing a responsible way to dispose of certain hard-to-recycle baby food packaging,” said TerraCycle CEO and Founder, Tom Szaky. “By collecting and recycling these items, families can demonstrate their respect for the environment not only through the products that they choose for their children, but also with how they dispose of the packaging.”   As an added incentive, for every pound of packaging waste sent to TerraCycle through the Gerber Recycling Program, collectors can earn $1 to donate to a non-profit, school or charitable organization of their choice.   Gerber believes the baby food industry should help create a world where babies thrive, and this partnership is one of many steps toward its goal to achieve 100% recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025. “We’re thrilled to partner with TerraCycle as part of our broader sustainable packaging efforts,” said Gerber President and CEO Bill Partyka. “We know every parent’s top priority is to ensure a healthy, happy future for their baby. Our commitment to sustainability is rooted in giving parents a hand in making their baby’s future that much brighter.”   Gerber was founded on the ambition to give babies the best start in life. That’s why their work doesn’t stop at nutrition. As the world’s largest baby food company, Gerber has upheld some of the industry’s strongest agricultural standards through its Clean Field Farming™ practices, and is committed to reducing energy use, water use and carbon emissions in its factories.   The Gerber Recycling Program is open to any interested individual, school, office, or community organization. For more information on TerraCycle’s recycling programs, visit www.TerraCycle.com.

Rubicon Global announced that the company has launched a Halloween campaign designed to help elementary and middle-school teachers across the United States educate their students on the importance of recycling and keeping candy wrappers out of landfills. The campaign is in keeping with the company’s B Corp mission to end waste.   According to industry data, $2.6 billion will be spent on candy in 2019⁽¹⁾, and Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy⁽²⁾ for Halloween. Throughout the month of October, Rubicon will be running its first ever “Trick or Trash” campaign, offering teachers in elementary and middle schools across the United States a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle for students to discard their Halloween candy wrappers within. All of these items are being provided free of charge⁽³⁾.   “We believe this campaign can be a catalyst for the next generation to recycle more and reduce waste in our world,” said Nate Morris, Founder and CEO of Rubicon. “Our hope is this program is a great addition to everyone’s Halloween festivities while providing teachers with a curriculum with which to educate students on how to develop positive recycling habits.”   “TerraCycle’s mission has always been to ‘Eliminate the Idea of Waste’ and we’ve proven that solutions do exist for items that may seem difficult to recycle,” said Tom Szaky, Founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “Rubicon not only shares our commitment but has taken it to the next level by spearheading the ‘Trick or Trash’ Halloween campaign to reduce the impact of candy and snack wrappers on the environment and help pave the way for a greener future.”   Rubicon Global is a technology company that powers a digital marketplace, provides a suite of SaaS products for waste, recycling, and smart city solutions, and collects and analyzes data for businesses and governments worldwide. Using technology to help turn businesses into more sustainable enterprises and neighborhoods into greener and smarter places to live and work, Rubicon’s mission is to end waste in all of its forms by helping its partners find economic value in their waste streams and confidently execute on their sustainability goals. The company is a Certified B Corporation, affirming that Rubicon meets the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance and aligns its business with purpose and social good. Through its technology, Rubicon is transforming the entire category of waste and recycling.   Teachers can download the lesson plan immediately upon sign-up. After completing the sign-up, a Candy and Snack Wrappers Zero Waste Box will be shipped to their school. Once delivered, teachers can simply set up the box in their classroom, cafeteria, or hallway, and encourage the students to deposit all of their candy wrappers in the box. Once the box is full, teachers can simply close the box, attached the prepaid shipping label, and ship it off free of charge.

NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio — As the little ghosts and goblins bring home a huge haul for Halloween, Dr. Amberlee Taylor of North Royalton Pediatric Dentistry is making sure those treats don't come back to haunt them.   "Chocolate is going to be the best candy, because when you place it in your mouth, it's going to melt away," Dr. Taylor explains. "Anything that's going to stick in your teeth and stay there for a long period of time is pretty much what you do want to avoid."   That makes candies like Blow Pops a double whammy.  The long-lasting sugar of hard candy, plus the chewy center.   Then there's Sour Patch Candy, a triple-threat of enamel-eating sour acids and sugar plus sticky.   And it matters not just which candy kids eat, but when. The best time is right after mealtime.   "When we eat, our saliva builds up and now you're going to go ahead and wash away the chocolate," says Dr. Taylor.   So now that it's practically raining candy in your house, what should you do with all that sugar?   Cleveland Clinic Child Psychologist Dr. Kate Eshleman says to set expectations and adds that it's helpful to give them warnings.   To give you some idea of how much kids can eat, pediatricians recommend a daily limit of 25 grams of sugar for children. That's four mini-Twizzlers, three Twix minis, or two fun-sized Snickers.   Did you know that you can recycle candy wrappers? Well, sort of. At Ganley Subaru in Wickliffe, you'll find a drop-off box to collect candy wrappers that are shipped to a company called TerraCycle, which specializes in recycling hard-to-recycle material.   Sweet ways to make Halloween candy a little less scary for us all.  

Nestlé has announced that its early childhood nutrition brand Gerber has partnered with TerraCycle to launch a programme in the US aimed at recycling certain 'hard-to-recycle' baby food packaging.   The initiative is part of Nestlé’s goal to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.   Gerber president and CEO, Bill Partyka, commented, "We’re thrilled to partner with TerraCycle as part of our broader sustainable packaging efforts.   "We know every parent’s top priority is to ensure a healthy, happy future for their baby. Our commitment to sustainability is rooted in giving parents a hand in making their baby’s future that much brighter."  

The Collection Programme

  The free-of-cost collection programme requires customers to sign up on the 'Gerber Recycling Program' page.   Customers then use a prepaid shipping label to mail baby food packaging that is not recyclable.   The plastic collected is then cleaned and melted into hard plastic for making new recycled products.   TerraCycle CEO and founder, Tom Szaky, said, "By collecting and recycling these items, families can demonstrate their respect for the environment not only through the products that they choose for their children, but also with how they dispose of the packaging."