Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 11:14 am Press Release: TerraCycle Back to school tools for a healthy smile and healthy planet Bright Smiles Bright Futures launches school oral care recycling program with TerraCycle http://www.terracycle.co.nz/en-NZ/brigades/bsbf-schools.html In March, 2,200 primary schools in New Zealand will be invited to take part in the Colgate Bright Smiles Bright Futures Program (BSBF) to learn how to achieve good oral health and take steps to create a healthy planet. The unique recycling solution is a joint initiative with recycling company TerraCycle and Colgate-Palmolive. Teachers are invited to register for the Colgate Oral Care Brigade and encourage their students to recycle oral care waste and win rewards for their school. The BSBF Oral Health Education kit has been provided free to primary schools each year since 1997. Developed by teachers and oral health professionals, the curriculum features an exciting array of activities designed to encourage students to take responsibility for their oral health. Students meet the engaging Dr. Rabbit and his team of Tooth Defenders on their mission to fight the sticky villain, Placulus and save Tooth City. Along the way, they learn the importance of brushing twice a day, having a regular dental check-up and using their "tools for a bright smile". The Colgate Oral Care Brigade encourages school communities to collect and send these "tools for a bright smile" or “unrecyclable” oral care items to TerraCycle free via New Zealand Post. This includes toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, floss containers and their outer packaging which will be recycled into sustainable products. Since 1997 the BSBF program has inspired over 1 million children and their families to take care of their oral health. All schools ordering the BSBF kits will receive a "Recycle Your Tools for a Bright Smile" pack featuring a class activity to design a collection box to store used oral care items. Once registered, they will receive incentives to boost the school collection drive throughout the year and at the same time raise money for their school. For every used oral care item collected and sent to Terracyle, a donation of two cents will be made to the collector’s school. Colgate will also award $1,000 to the registered school sending the most oral care waste in total by 1 November 2015. “It is estimated that 9 million toothbrushes and 16 million toothpaste tubes are used in New Zealand each year. This is a great community effort to recycle waste that would otherwise end up in landfill,” said Anna Minns, General Manager, TerraCycle. “At TerraCycle our mission is to ‘eliminate the idea of waste’ by educating on re-use, upcycling and recycling. Our team of designers, headed by Tiffany Threadgould devise ways to give oral care waste a second life such as a toothbrush made into a pen or a play ground made of toothpaste tubes.” “It’s a big ‘win and grin’ initiative for students. The program encourages students to participate as they head back to start the school year and to continue learning and recycling throughout the year.” Visit www.terracycle.co.nz to learn more about TerraCycle Brigade programs. -ENDS- © Scoop Media

In an ideal world, it’d be easy to recycle everything we didn’t need. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple – but these 13 tips will make it a little easier to recycle more. Even if you were part of the generation of Australians who had ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ drilled into you during the last decade – recycling can be hard to do. It’s not always clear what can and can’t be recycled in your local council area. recycle bins Even if you were part of the generation of Australians who had ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ drilled into you during the last decade – recycling can be hard to do. It’s not always clear what can and can’t be recycled in your local council area For recycling plastics, we’ve put together this handy guide - but what about recycling beyond your yellow bin? Here are the best tips for recycling all that you can. SHAREONFBSHAREONTWSUBSCRIBE 1: ‘Green’ polypropylene bags, and plastic packaging that you can’t recycle at home, such as biscuit packets, bread bags, rice and pasta bags, can all be recycled in the dedicated bins at both Coles and most Woolworths supermarkets. They might even be remade into things like garden benches for schools. You can read more here. 2: Mobile phones (but not cables) can be left at Sony Centres and Leading Edge Computers. Here, mobile phones are recycled and the money raised will be used to build specialised youth cancer centres for 15 to 30 year old cancer sufferers through the charity YouCan. 3: Domestic batteries can be disposed of sustainably in bins at most ALDI stores. Learn more from our friends at Planet Ark. 4: Used stamps are accepted as donations by many organisations – for example, Guide Dogs in Tasmania. You can find a full list of organisations who collect used stamps at the Give Now website. 5: Used prescription glasses and sunglasses can be donated to OPSM or Personal Eyes, who will pass them on to someone who can’t afford glasses in a developing country. 6: Unused mini shampoos, soaps and lotions from hotels can be given to your local homeless shelter or women’s refuge. 7: Corks from wine or champagne bottles might be recyclable at a location near you. Use Planet Ark’s Recycling Near You tool to find a drop-off point. 8: Used bras and swimwear can be donated to Project Uplift, which sends them on to women for whom bras are unobtainable or unaffordable. You can find participating stores across Australia here. 9: Wire clothes hangers can be returned to dry cleaning shops. 10: Joggers that are not too worn can be given to Soles for Souls who will donate them to orphanages or use them to help fund microfinance projects in developing countries. 11: Used plastic children’s toys in good condition can be recycled with Second Chance Toys. 12: Empty toothpaste tubes, brushes, floss containers, some coffee capsules can be recycled with Terracycle. Just remember to check in and arrange it with them first. 13. Printer cartridges can be recycled at Officeworks, JB HiFi, Australia Post, Harvey Norman, Dick Smith. SHAREONFBSHAREONTWSUBSCRIBE 'Arctic 30' Take Part in a Recycling Day in St. Petersburg Being environmentally conscious on recycling day and sorting your rubbish into compost, recycling and general waste bins is fantastic – but it’s important to think about producing less rubbish to begin with. To help consume less ‘stuff’, try asking yourself these three questions when you’re buying something new: 1. What resources went into creating, producing, packaging, and delivering this product to me? 2. Will my use of this product achieve a good return on investment for those resources? 3. Is there another way? Do I already have something like this at home? Could I borrow this from someone I know? Is there a less resource-intensive alternative? Could I buy this second-hand? Could I make this out of something I already have? TIP: If you can’t recycle it, maybe you can upcycle your trash into something new. Learn more about upcycling and check out some easy DIYs here. Want to do more? Sign up to join 400,000 Greenpeace supporters and get opportunities to create change straight into your inbox!

TERRACYCLE is calling on local community centres, schools and businesses to register, for free, as a collection point for ‘unrecyclable’ items and raise money for non-profit groups. These items can then be recycled into sustainable items or materials and, with 21.3million tones of waste sent to landfill each year, it is an opportunity for local residents and groups to send their waste to a public collection point. The unrecyclable items include toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, cleaning and beauty product pumps, triggers and wipes, cigarette waste and coffee capsules. These items are currently being diverted from landfill. General Manager of TerraCycle Australia, Anna Minns said everyone should think about getting involved. “National Recycling Week and the Christmas period is the perfect time to learn more about recycling and how to get involved in your local community,” she said. “TerraCycle believes anything can and should be recycled and we have developed solutions for waste that are deemed unsavoury or difficult to recycle, such as cigarette butts. “Since TerraCycle’s launch in March on Clean Up Australia Day we have collected more than three million cigarette butts as well as other unrecyclable waste. “We’ve saved this from landfill, thanks mainly to local litter groups, workplaces, community centres and households.” Interested groups are encouraged to register on the TerraCycle website as donations will be given towards a local group or cause. For every piece of waste collected and dropped off at your local collection point two cents goes towards a great local cause or non profit. To register as a collection point, go to www.terracycle.com.au.

Anna Minns is General Manager of Terracycle Australia, a company dedicated to creating recycling solutions for just about anything. What’s involved in developing a recycling solution for “difficult” waste like the Nescafé capsules? More often than not, companies approach us about a solution for their product’s waste stream. Nescafé Dolce Gusto joined with TerraCycle to provide a second life for used Nescafé Dolce Gusto capsules, so Australians can now collect, store and ship their capsules from home or work for free. For the current Nescafé Dolce Gusto Capsule Brigade we do not collect any other brand of capsules, only Nescafé Dolce Gusto capsules. If consumers are interested in a particular waste stream we suggest they let their favourite brand know about TerraCycle’s work! We hope in time to be collecting more and more “unrecyclable” waste. Can goodwill be infectious enough for the majority of manufacturing companies to take responsibility for end of life of their product, or will they need to be pushed into it by legislation? As the circular economy is increasingly gaining traction in our region many companies are looking to circular solutions rather than linear solutions of ‘take, make, then dispose’. TerraCycle works with many major FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies, as well as small brands, to create a voluntary product stewardship scheme that diverts everyday consumer products and packaging that are difficult to recycle such as toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, coffee capsules and even cigarette butts, from landfill, and instead into new products creating circular solutions. The recycling system creates a collection model open to the public. Australia has one of the highest rates of waste generation per capita in the world and in fact, world waste is also expected to double by 2025. Government schemes and extended producer responsibility laws may be slow in coming to effect to deal with growing waste issues. TerraCycle’s solutions are readily available and the onus is on both brands to consider a solution to an increasing problem as well as consumers to use their buying power as a ‘vote’ for sustainability. What would you nominate as the most unlikely or surprising items that you have created recycling solutions for? Cigarettes, chewing gum, feminine hygiene products and nappies! TerraCycle has proven that (almost) anything can and should be recycled. Do you get to shovel rotting food to the worms occasionally? No. But we are offering a copy of Tom’s book “Revolution in a Bottle” for a Switch Report reader that outlines the origins of TerraCycle as a company turning worm poop into fertilizer! To win a copy of Revolution in a Bottle by Terracycle’s founder Tom Szaky, just sign up for our newsletter by midnight on Sunday 16 November, and you’ll be in the draw. If you are already on our mailing list you don’t need to do anything. You are automatically entered.

In 2001, Terracycle founder (and the man they now call the Zuckerberg of trash) Tom Szaky was just another university undergraduate trying to come up with an idea for the Princeton Business Plan Conest. An Autumn trip to Montreal introduced him to the wonder of worm farming and he was soon singing the praises of the fertilizer that they produce. Years of back breaking work and diversification later and Terracycle is now a global leader in waste minimisation – operating in 21 countries around the world, with 60 million consumers collecting waste for their repurposing operations. This extend far beyond fertilizer, with Terracycle now targeting the waste that has not traditionally been recycled, at both the pre and post-consumer level. What does this include? In the USA, Terracycle has 60 different waste streams, converting everything from used gum to cigarette butts to dirty diapers into (respectively) rubbish bins, assorted plastic products and compost – not bad, for what we once considered trash! In New Zealand, Terracycle is currently limited to two waste streams: Oral Care products (toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, floss containers etc), and Nescafe Dolce Gusto Capsules (from coffee machines) – but more are on their way. Of particular interest to sports clubs is the pending collecting for confectionary wrappers – stay tuned! So how does it work? Their system is simple. Interested individuals sign up online at www.terracycle.co.nz, choose a category of waste that they would like to collect and start collecting it. While Terracycle don’t provide a box for this (they want to encourage reuse of existing ones!), once your group has collected enough to fill a container your leader can request a free shipping label. This is affixed to the box and off it goes! For every piece of waste received, TerraCycle credits the group with a small donation (2 cents per item in NZ) that can be donated to any charity or school of their choice – meaning that your sports club can directly benefit, as well as reducing the waste sent to landfill. As LiteClub co-founder Michael Campbell says, “if we all do a little, together we can achieve a lot.”

This dynamic US-based company is active on four continents (including 11 EU countries), collecting difficult-to-recycle packaging, such as drink pouches, crisp bags, pens, toothbrushes, and turning it into new products including bags, benches, plant pots and watering cans. It works with consumer brands and operates local and national ‘brigades’, which collect items for recycling. Globally, TerraCycle has re-purposed more than 2.6 billion items of packaging. It is working to come up with solutions for other difficult-to-recycle but widely discarded waste streams such as disposable nappies and chewing gum.

Empty chip bags, old toothbrushes and dried-out makeup: their days of going into the garbage are gone. The Oregon Department of Corrections is partnering with Terracycle, a New Jersey-based innovative recycling company, to kick-start unconventional recycling programs in the state prison system. Together, the prisons have collected more than 108,000 chip bags, keeping 1,300 pounds out of landfills and instead recycling them into bulk plastics through Terracycle’s Brigades programs. For each unit of trash — now recycling — donated to Terracycle, the company will award points that convert into donations for schools and charities. ODOC won the Recycler of the Year award from the group Mid-Valley Green Awards for conserving water and energy and recycling ballistic vests, metal, shoes, and flourescent light bulbs. In 2011, Terracycle collected old flip-flops—enough to donate the recycled rubber to four school playgrounds. In 2012, the company started the world’s first cigarette butt recycling program.

Toothbrushes donated to the program through TerraCycle are being used as the building blocks for the disco ball art installation designed and constructed by Yarrow Mazzetti and Overkill (pictured above). If successful in gathering enough funding, it will be unveiled at the 2013 Burning Man festival at Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

While writing a previous article on green dental care, I found out about a great company called TerraCycle, which offers a program to accept “non-recyclable or hard to recycle waste,” such as toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes. After looking at the website , I decided TerraCycle deserved an article of its own! Started by a young Princeton student, TerraCycle began as a small business that sold worm casting fertilizer in used soda bottles. TerraCycle started expanding its business by producing various products out of post-consumer waste, such as pencil cases out of used CapriSun drink pouches. This process, called upcycling, involves producing new, useful products out of waste materials and useless products that otherwise would go to the landfill. So, upcycling helps reduce landfill waste and reduces resource use. TerraCycle quickly grew into a global project with over 20 countries now participating in their upcycling efforts.