IS THERE A PROBLEM WITH COFFEE PODS? One in three households in the US today are believed to have a coffee pod based machine. The number of coffee pod machines are increasing in the UK and Europe as well. If you are an owner of a coffee pod machine, have you been reading reports about the environmental issues of used coffee pods? Have your friends been telling you that coffee pods are bad for the environment? Have you been planning to buy a coffee pod machine? Do you want to know what the reality is on used coffee pods?

As a mom to little humans, one big challenge I face is what to feed them that’s 1) healthy 2) they’ll eat 3) that’s (relatively) easy. In talking with many other moms, this is pretty much a universal problem. With the three cats in our house (and the dog, too) this is a non-issue for me because we feed our cats Wellness and that meets the three requirements above in one easy swoop, especially with reformulated Complete Health line of dry and canned cat food products.

Hillcrest Elementary School in the Somerset section of Franklin is competing to win a playground made from recycled oral care waste through the fourth annual Recycled Playground Challenge, courtesy of Colgate-Palmolive, ShopRite and recycling pioneer TerraCycle.Hillcrest Elementary School will earn one Playground Credit ...

Hillcrest Elementary School in the Somerset section of Franklin is competing to win a playground made from recycled oral care waste through the fourth annual Recycled Playground Challenge, courtesy of Colgate-Palmolive, ShopRite and recycling pioneer TerraCycle.

Recycling has become pretty commonplace. Into Savannah’s yellow and black bins go bottles, cans, paper and cardboard. But cigarette butts? That’s what Emily Lyons recycles. After the 21-year-old Savannah resident learned that cigarette butts don’t decompose quickly — the filters are plastic — she quit flicking her Maverick Menthol 100s onto the roadway and starting saving them for a national recycling initiative. The program is sponsored by Terracycle, and Lyons discovered it through a website that offers other recycling programs. She saves the cigarette butts in a Folger’s can, tripled bagged and exiled to the porch to keep the odor away, and sends them off with a prepaid label when the can is full. At Terracycle, the cigarette waste is separated into the compostable parts and the plastic filters, which are recycled into items such as plastic pallets for industrial uses.

そのようななか、注目を集めているのがリユースやリサイクルとも違う“アップサイル”という方法です。アップサイクルとは英語ではアップサイクリング（Upcycling）。リユー（Reuse）はそのままの形で再使用すること、リサイクル（Recycle）は素材を原料化して再利用することですが、アップサイクルは廃材や使わなくなったものの素材はそのままに、新しい発想やデザインの力を借りることで、より価値の高い製品に生まれ変わらせることです。 こうしたアップサイクルの動きは、トラックの幌布で作ったバッグで知られるスイスの「フライターグ」やお菓子のプラスチック製パッケージで作った傘やリュックを販売するアメリカの「テラサイクル」に代表される欧米の企業によってリードされ、いまでは世界的なファッションブランドが再生繊維だけを使った服や、洋服を作ったときに残る生地をアップサイクルして開発したコレクションを発表するなど、世界中に広がっています。

Encouraging recycling  Consumers face a choice when they unwrap or finish a product: recycle or dispose. Australian consumers are generally good at recycling the basics - aluminium cans, glass and plastic bottles - but need prompting when it comes to other forms of packaging. TerraCycle, founded in the US in 2011, helps consumers recycle the difficult-to-recycle. It runs brand sponsored collection programs for different types of waste from chip bags to juice pouches. Brigades, comprising community groups, schools or individuals, collect packaging for a particular stream and TerraCycle uses innovative recycling and upcycling processes to keep waste from going to, well, waste. Since its launch, TerraCycle has grown to 21 countries including the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand. "The recycling programs are hugely successful," TerraCycle Australia & New Zealand PR and Marketing Manager Gemma Kaczerepa said. "There are currently 60 million people collecting for TerraCycle worldwide. Since 2006, we have diverted more than 3.7 billion units of waste from landfills and incinerators, and raised more than $15 million for charity. Further, there are now over 60 types of non-recyclable waste that can be recycling through our programs." Different programs are run in each country, depending on support of brands. In Australia some of the successful programs include:

• Beauty products recycling program with L'Oréal - more than 138,000 products (including shampoo and hairspray bottles, eye-shadow palettes and lipstick tubes) have been diverted from landfill since the program's launch in 2014
• Kids Pouch & Snack recycling program with Whole Kids - more than 20,000 products have been diverted from landfill since the program's launch in 2015
• Nescafé Dolce Gusto Capsule recycling program - more than 600,000 capsules have been diverted from landfill since the program's launch in 2014
• Oral Care recycling program with Colgate - more than 203,000 products have been diverted from landfill since the program's launch in 2014.

This program also features the Bright Smiles, Bright Futures oral care recycling contest - a nationwide recycling competition for primary schools primary schools offering a $1,000 prize and, in the latest round, a recycled park bench made of oral-care waste. Mz Kaczerepa says there are program taking place overseas that she'd like to see implemented in Australia, such as recycling programs for stationery, pet food and treat packaging, and contact lenses and blister packs. Internationally, TerraCycle also works with retailers to create in-store recycling promotions and awareness campaigns to communicate the recyclability of the brand's products. "This can include in-store competition whereby shoppers are encouraged to return products to enter the prize draw; in-store collections whereby customers can redeem their used products for a discount off new ones; and shelf-talkers and other marketing collateral to promote the brand and its recycling efforts," Mz Kaczerepa said. "We hope to launch a similar initiatives in Australia in 2017."

Goods and services evolve to meet the needs of the modern consumer, but one thing that we always need (being 65% liquids, and all) are beverages to stay hydrated. Packaging technologies have long made big business out of bottling liquids for a thirsty populace. Today, the beverage industry is long expanded beyond the simple bottled milk, soda and wine of yore to bring to market electrolyte water, craft beer, cartoned coconut waters and instant vitamin lemonade…the list goes on.    Our thirst for new and exciting things in the consumer beverage industry has stoked the innovation of both the products themselves, and their packaging. It seems that the more we innovate, the less packaging material there is, the result of a product packaging trend called “lightweighting.”   A (Quick) History of Beverage Packaging Before the ubiquity of home refrigerators, milk (and other items like eggs, butter and cream) would spoil if not refreshed in small amounts and with frequency. Long replenished by delivery service people in the jugs or other durable, reusable containers provided by customers, these products would eventually be delivered in reusable glass bottles provided by milk distributors that customers would then wash and leave out on their doorstep once empty.    Lighter and more portable than a thick, glass bottle, commercial metal cans used to store and preserve food began production early as the 1800s, but introduction of the beer can in 1935 got the ball rolling in terms of a viable way to mass package and distribute beverages. Initially either “cone topped” or featuring flat ends that required a "church key" to open (many of today’s cans are still opened this way), the invention of the pull-tab in 1959 revolutionized the metal can as a light, convenient vessel for beverages with high function and recyclability.    The use of plastic to bottle beverages went from being an expensive technology into an affordable, economically viable practice when high-density polyethylene (HDPE) was introduced in the early 1960s. Compared to glass bottles, plastic’s lightweight nature, relatively low production and transportation costs and resistance to breakage made them popular with manufacturers and customers.  Today, the food and beverage industry has almost completely replaced glass bottles with plastic bottles.   While all of this was happening, the concept of carton-based packaging offered a lighter, paper-centric alternative to glass, metal and plastic packaging that continues to develop today. Around the turn of the century, the patent of the first “paper bottle” called the "Pure-Pak" featured a folding paper box for holding milk that could be glued and sealed at a dairy farm for distribution. Since, carton technologies have evolved to feature various combinations of plastic, metal and paper, moisture barriers, and/or rigid plastic closures and fitments for function and convenience. Today, one of the most extreme examples of “lightweighted” packaging is a small, thin, flexible plastic pouch-like item called a sachet. Single-use sachets are very inexpensive to make, which brings down cost for consumers. These items also fall outside the scope of recyclability due to their small size, and are prone to end up in oceans and waterways. The Problem with “Lightweighting” Many of today’s beverage packaging innovations are considered more convenient and more affordable for the consumer, due to their using less natural resources to produce. They are also often marketed as making less of an environmental impact, because they take up less volume. However, simply put, today’s most recognizable “innovations” in beverage products (i.e. juice pouches, aseptic juice and water cartons, instant drink power sachets) are difficult to recycle and considered “disposable,” tracked for landfill and the inevitable pollution of our natural ecosystems. This is because they are: 1) multi-compositional - made from a combination of different types of plastic, paper, and/or metal 2) too small to be captured by municipal recycling facilities.  The “cool,” innovative fitments that give your “lightweighted” items high functionality (i.e. straws, caps, spoons, etc.) are also not recyclable through curbside collections due to their small size. Message in a Bottle: Where do we go? It seems that we have come a long way from getting our milk delivered to our doorstep in glass bottles. The fact is, we can do well to look to the past to create more sustainable systems of consumption. Try to steer clear of plastic bottles; although plastic is readily recyclable in many municipalities, there is declining market for it on the backend. Opting for a reusable water or beverage bottle will help you cut down on some of your plastic consumption, as well as keep you hydrated all day. Bigger isn’t always better, but when it comes to product packaging, namely in the beverage industry, looking to the history of what has long worked to sustain consumers (like you!) in the past can help us tap into what it is we really want out of our products.

CORNWALL, Ontario - This Saturday, March 4, the St. Lawrence Power Development Visitor Centre joined the St. Lawrence River Institute in celebrating the Cornwall premiere of their documentary, “A Great River Runs Through Us.” The film follows last summer's Great St. Lawrence River Cleanup, giving people a glimpse into massive community undertaking.   The documentary was filmed by Vince Pilon over the course of five months, and showcases the partnerships between various community groups as they work together to restore the St. Lawrence River to its former glory. Partners included Raisin River Conservation Authority, the Seaway Valley Divers, Cornwall Lunker Club, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne and Ontario Trillium Foundation, and more – all of whom played critical roles in facilitating the cleanup. “We are a throwaway culture,” said Karen Douglass Cooper, Communications Specialist, the River Institute. “It’s so obvious, it’s disturbing.” At one point, kerosene was being routinely pumped into the river to keep the foam down, said Douglass Cooper. “Kerosene was great at suppressing the foam – but we were pumping fuel into our river so we could hide that we were polluting our river.” “Delusion became the solution to pollution,” said Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Environmental Science Officer, Henry Lickers. “They’d just dump it into the river, and the St. Lawrence River became an alphabet soup.” Having pulled out shopping carts, a cash till, and more Tim Horton’s coffee cups than anyone could count, thanks to TerraCycle Canada, much of the garbage will be recycled at no cost to the city. With most of the hard plastics to be melted down and repurposed, things like cigarette butts will be primarily used for composting. Juice boxes, which were also a dime a dozen during the cleanup, will be turned into backpacks. “It’s really about bringing yourself into the community and understanding the way you should engage with the environment, that we all are a part of it,” said MCA Environment program's Abraham Francis. “We aren’t separate from it, we aren’t better than it, and it’s our responsibility to repair and aid what we’ve cause to it.”