As packaging designers, you probably have seen, thought about and are working on ecological options. You’ve probably done your homework, and know which options would have the most impact. And that’s not always going the recycled route. But for your average consumer, the concept of recycled, especially post-consumer recycled being the greenest of options, has long been banged into their heads, and that’s just not always true. What am I talking about, you ask? Take eco icon Method, who took cleaning products from hidden under the counter workhorses to ego gratifying stylish counter decoration. Those well-designed bottles take a lot of plastic to make. Yes, you could recycle them and get another, but why not just refill them? That’s exactly what Method has done. Its refill units use 80 to 90 percent less material and packaging. Multiply that times however many people use Method products and choose this option, and you’ve got a substantial amount of materials saved. But there’s a problem. The refills themselves aren’t typically recyclable. So yes, you’re likely still coming out ahead in terms of resource use and impact as compared to repeatedly buying and recycling entire bottles of product. For many consumers though, this is a mental hurdle they may not wish to jump. There is, fortunately, a way to solve for this problem: remake them into bags, trash cans and benches. You heard right. How? Via Method’s new Refill Brigade. Remember the 3 R’s of sustainability are Reduce, Reuse, Reycle, in that order. So the refill pack is reducing packaging use and a collection program is reusing or recycling the materials as well. Accomplishing all three R’s!

My company, TerraCycle, has a very unusual business model. We turn the world’s waste into new products. We collect non-recyclable waste, some straight from manufacturers and some from schools, charities and other community groups, and we partner with other manufacturers to recycle or “upcycle” that material into new products — like plastic lumber from juice pouches and shower curtains from sewn-together granola wrappers. My channel on this blog will be a diary of our experiences and decisions, our lessons learned and opportunities missed. Here’s how our model works: eventually all products become waste. Some, like soda bottles, are recyclable but most are not. Major corporations ranging from Kraft Foods to Colgate-Palmolive work with TerraCycle to create solutions for waste that is currently not recyclable — things like toothpaste tubes and cookie wrappers. These companies pay TerraCycle to run collection programs, covering the costs of shipping and typically making a donation of 2 cents for every item collected to the charity or school of the collector’s choice. We also collect post-industrial waste — like excess packaging, misprints, etc. — directly from these corporations The waste ends up in one of our warehouses, the biggest being right next door to our headquarters in Trenton. Then TerraCycle works with major manufacturing companies to produce products from the collected waste. To accomplish this, TerraCycle’s science team develops a range of materials from each type of waste and then our products team works with the manufacturer to turn the material into something that can be sold. The idea is to lessen the need for virgin materials and render previously non-recyclable items recyclable. The resulting products are then sold at major retailers like Wal-Mart and Target.

Compostable packaging. Two words that, for much of 2010, brought cringes to the faces of American packaging designers. Why? We all know what a disaster the first Sunchips compostable packaging launch was, at least in the U.S. It was the first high-profile mainstream effort to do so, and consumers crumpled it quickly because of the high decibel bag. Thankfully, Frito Lay didn’t just call it quits, but instead came back fighting with a newly quieter bag, cautiously being rolled out now. But let’s say that issue gets fixed and other mainstream brands find their courage to go the compostable or biodegradable route, too. There’s a larger problem here which, with for all the showboating about what a silver bullet for CPG these options are, needs to be addressed: It’s a pain in the ass to actually get this supposedly compostable packaging to actually compost! You and I both know this: Unless you happen to have professional level facilities or be the most skilled backyard composter in four states, you simply won’t get the results that people are expecting to happen. And these unmet expectations will lead to a deeper, less vocally expressed disaffection for green products that’s more difficult to address. So what can be done?

People like to have a product just work, and don't want to work to make it work. Even if it's a simple matter of running the tap, screwing in a refill cylinder, and off you go, that seems to be too much effort for all but the most dedicated greenies. And when it comes to food products, maybe refilling feels too hippie, and like you're not getting truly fresh, new food? Does size matter? Could it be that people don't get the mathematics? Perhaps people are still going on the bigger is better, more is more school of consumerism, and when they see a smaller version of something they've bought for years, it's in their minds not worth paying the same price? Or even if it's cheaper, the product somehow seems insufficient and not of equal quality because it's not as big, and the small bit of DIY required makes the product less substantial, less "genuine"?

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.

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!

What motivates consumers to make more sustainable choices? A desire to “save the planet?” A drive to improve the health of their community? To preserve their own or their children’s health? Ego? Probably a mix of all of these. And sometimes it’s money. At the end of 2010, TerraCycle partnered with the Walmart Foundation to do the Trash To Cash Collection contest. It’s simple: New Jersey public schools competed to see which could collect the most trash to upcycled/recycled by TerraCycle. The top 6 schools would receive a total of $125,000 in grants. Did it work?

Valentine's Day <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/alicia-silverstone-tips-for-green-valentines-day-and-more.php>  is a wonderful excuse for loving partners, friends, parents, kids and  teachers to show they care. And like jelly to peanut butter, candy is an integral part of that. But afterwords, there's a little problem: What do you do with all that packaging the Valentine's candy came in? Most of it is at this point difficult to recycle. I know you here reading Treehugger would like to take a different route than tossing your Valentine's Day candy wrappers in the trash, while still getting to take part in the fun of giving and receiving candy. I have two suggestions for you.

I’ve been doing some thinking on how the recycling system could be improved here in the U.S., increasing the amount and scope, and I’d like your thoughts. There are some great models out there. But which way is best, for all involved, on both the producer and consumer ends? At TerraCycle we’ve begun expanding operations into other countries, so I’ve been learning about what’s happening, and it’s intriguing. But I wonder, will it work here, or more like, will it be allowed to work here?

2010 was a great year, but something happened that made me angry. But backing up and having a broader look, it makes sense. It goes like this: Sunchips, after more than a year of marketing getting people ready, launches with a fully compostable bag. It fails, hugely. Because it's too noisy for some. Noisy, really? Really. At first this seemed absurd to me, but then, if I take off my "green glasses," I can see that an obnoxiously loud bag would take precedence over the fact that it can be composted. The reality is (at least currently) people are more interested in appearing green than actually engaging in green behavior, particularly that which impinges on their comfort. And truth be told, actually composting so called compostable packaging is, for the most part, quite a difficult task.