Halloween, you might think, should be the greenest holiday this side of Arbor Day. Its traditional decorations are heavily berry-based (pumpkins are berries, botanically speaking, and highly compostable), and it celebrates recycling in the form of zombies and Dr. Frankenstein’s monster-making. But one big part of Halloween isn’t eco-friendly.   Most candy wrappers aren’t accepted by municipal recycling programs. But there are specialty recycling firms that handle them. The Iowa City Landfill and Recycling Center recommends New Jersey-based TerraCycle.   TerraCycle sells waste boxes, which are filled and then shipped back to the company for recycling. Unfortunately, the service is a little pricey — from $43 to $218, depending on the size of the waste box. The Recycling Center suggests joining “with your neighbors to fill up a box to send to Terracycle.”   But collaborating with neighbors isn’t always easy. It can lead to shame-filled discussions about how much candy you stole from your kids’ Halloween haul that will make you want to avoid eye-contact with the neighbors for weeks. Or maybe your neighbors are the sort who hand out little bags of popcorn or nickels to trick-or-treaters, so you generally avoid them at this time of year. Or maybe they’re the sort of neighbors you avoid at all times of the year. Regardless of the reason, Little Village is here to help.   Bring your clean, empty candy wrappers (no melted remains, please) to the Little Village office in downtown Iowa City from Nov. 1-15. We’ll buy the appropriate-sized TerraCycle box and then ship your Halloween detritus to New Jersey for recycling. Our office is located at 623 S Dubuque St, and is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.   As for pumpkins — the official state fruit of New Hampshire — and other berries, they can be put in the organic waste bin for curbside collection.

A preocupação ambiental está cada vez mais em evidência no contexto em que vivemos. A cada dia fala-se mais a respeito de sustentabilidade, economia circular e reciclagem. Indivíduos e empresas passaram a adotar ações mais conscientes e é notável a mudança crescente nos hábitos de consumo, descarte de resíduos e na percepção da importância da responsabilidade compartilhada. As grandes marcas vêm repensando seus produtos e embalagens e buscando soluções para o descarte correto dos resíduos que geram.

O químico escocês Fraser Stoddart, vencedor do Prêmio Nobel de Química de 2016, lançou uma marca de luxo para o cuidado da pele, a Noble Panacea. A linha é formulada com a tecnologia Organic Molecular Vessel (OMV), que permite a liberação programada de ingredientes ativos.

Os brasileiros precisam enfrentar a volatilidade com uma carteira de investimentos diversificada e de longo prazo. O conselho é de Gabriel Kallas, sócio-fundador da fintech Toro Investimentos, criada há quase 10 anos com foco em educação e tecnologia. Kallas detectou a oportunidade quando estudava no Colorado e descobriu que, já naquela época, metade da população norte-americana investia na bolsa de valores – uma realidade muito diferente da brasileira. Por aqui, a B3 só alcançou a marca de 1 milhão de investidores pessoas físicas em abril deste ano, após mais de uma década no patamar dos 600 mil. Apenas para efeito de comparação, entre 20% e 30% dos cidadãos asiáticos e europeus investem em renda variável.

Brinquedos e embalagens da marca poderão ser reciclados de forma gratuita pelos consumidores brasileiros

Will we go round in circles?   Still feeling a bit jet lagged from Germany? Got a post-K hangover? Or are you just dizzy from all the talk about circular economies?   Hopefully, you'll start feeling like you're back to normal soon, but don't expect the circles to stop turning very quickly. Even after machinery makers and material suppliers started packing up their booths, talk about the role plastics can play in a circular economy has only continued.   Procter & Gamble announced its plan to double the recycled content of its cleaning product packaging in Europe in 2020. BP announced its new $25 million chemical recycling plant in Illinois.   And companies marked an annual report from the Ellen MacArthur Fund by promoting their efforts for a more sustainable future.     Even babies are in on it   Maybe not babies, but their parents.   A new partnership between baby products company Gerber Products Co. and TerraCycle is aimed at difficult-to-recycle baby food packaging.   Parents can now sign up for the new Gerber Recycling Program at https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gerber to mail in packaging that can't be otherwise recycled in local municipal programs. Participants will be able to use prepaid shipping labels to send in their packaging for reprocessing.   And yes, that includes all those squeeze pouches, though the company requests that parents (or hungry toddlers) empty out all food first.   What am I worth?   Not in the philosophical sense, but in a dollars and cents measurement, the Manufacturers Association for Plastics Processors is out with its annual survey of wages and salaries in the plastics industry.   Bill Bregar has more on it here or you can go to MAPPinc.com, but in a nutshell, wages overall are up, but are increasing at a slower rate than in 2018. But obviously there are some jobs, like design engineer, which saw double-digit increases, while others, such as marketing managers, saw a double-digit drop.     Cool? Or just odd?   And finally, a survey. If you went to K, maybe you saw people carrying around those nearly life-sized, blow molded figures of a woman. Or maybe you read about them here. Machinery maker BBM called her Miss K, and her giveaway had people lining up for their own.   But we have questions. And so head over to Plastics News on Twitter and tell us: Outrageously cool? Or outrageously head scratching?   And if you took one home, please drop us a reply and tell us where you plan to place her.   We'll see you tomorrow!

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. This partnership is rooted in Gerber and TerraCycle®’s shared values around eliminating waste and 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.”  

For more information, visit www.terracycle.com.

Gerber baby food packages are now recyclable through Trenton recycler TerraCycle.   Parents can sign up here to access a prepaid shipping label to send in their baby food pouches, which TerraCycle then cleans and melts into hard plastics to be remolded into 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 Chief Executive Officer and Founder Tom Szaky in a statement. “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 in through Gerber’s recycling program, parents can earn $1 to donate to a nonprofit, school or charitable organization of their choice as an added incentive.   This partnership helps Gerber work toward its goal of using 100 percent recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025.   “We know every parent’s top priority is to ensure a healthy, happy future for their baby,” said Gerber President and CEO Bill Partyka in a statement. “Our commitment to sustainability is rooted in giving parents a hand in making their baby’s future that much brighter.”

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (WJHG) - A local nonprofit is working to keep butts off our beaches. Keep PCB Beautiful has already cleaned up dozens of pounds of cigarette litter. For this week's Everyday Heroes we take a closer look at the Cigarette Litter Prevention Campaign.   "We have America's most beautiful beaches and we are here to help keep them that way and to make them even better, also to give people a way to be part of the solution," said Kim Christian, Spokesperson for Keep PCB Beautiful.   Keep PCB Beautiful kicked off a Cigarette Litter Prevention Campaign back in April after receiving a grant from Keep America Beautiful. Fifty-four cigarette receptacles were installed across Panama City Beach at the City Pier, Frank Brown Park, Pier Park and local restaurants, like Pineapple Willy's.   "Most people don't think the cigarette butts are trash, so they don't really clean-up after themselves, but it's very important because it is trash and we want to keep our beaches the most beautiful beaches, and during the summer during our beach clean-up, cigarette butts were the number one item picked up everyday," said Melissa Traxler, Pineapple Willy's CEO.   The cigarette receptacles aren't just on land, they're also out at sea. Keep PCB Beautiful partnered with Captain Anderson's to take some of the cigarette receptacles out on their fishing boats.   "As you know people are prone to sometimes throw their cigarette butt into the water just because it is convenient. It's there, but it's not the right thing to do, so they have offered generously to deck out every single one of our head boats with a cigarette receptacle and I can just tell you it has been outstanding, they are quickly filling up," said Chelsea Ray, Marketing Director for Captain Anderson's Marina.   According to a study done by Keep America Beautiful, more than 70 percent of people who participated in the study didn't think cigarettes were litter. Since the campaign started in April, the nonprofit has collected more than 30 pounds of cigarette butts.   "They hardly biodegrade, it takes up to 10 years and when they do biodegrade they release toxins into our environment," Christian said. "We are not here to tell people to stop smoking, we are just here if you are going to smoke just put your cigarette butt in the proper receptacle."   All the recycled butts are given to TerraCycle, a recycling company that makes the plastic found in cigarette butts into furniture.   To date, Keep PCB Beautiful has cleaned 48 miles of shoreline. The group will be applying for another grant in the hopes of placing more cigarette receptacles around Panama City Beach.   Copyright 2019 WJHG. All rights reserved.

At last week's Raise the Green Bar sustainability summit in New York City, Birnur Aral and Carolyn Forté of the Good Housekeeping Institute announced the winners from indie, niche, and legacy brands in 9 categories across bath and body, makeup nd skin care, as well as fragrance