While climate change may be difficult to visualize on a day-to-day basis, Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, made it easy by releasing a shocking image that visually demonstrated in colored stripes the rising temperatures of the planet. It was this simple, yet powerful, image that inspired Romain Gaillard, founder and CEO of clean beauty retailer the Detox Market, to launch the Earth CPR Initiative.   “When I came across the #ShowYourStripes campaign—a simple, fact-based, visual representation of the global rise in temperature over the past 120 years—I was stunned,” says Gaillard in a statement on the Detox Market website. “Comparing where my parents were born on the chart to where my birth year fell was eye-opening enough, but when I placed my kids on the dark red stripes? I realized things needed to change, and soon.”   As part of the initiative, the company is introducing the image as an installation in its New York, Toronto, and Los Angeles locations. The retailer is also instituting recycling and bringing in TerraCycle, a company that collects hard-to-recycle consumer waste and finds ways to turn it into raw materials, to all its stores.   Additionally, the brand has set a goal of planting 500,000 trees in 2020 and at least 2.5 million trees by 2025 in the hopes of becoming carbon negative. The Detox Market is engaging its customer base in the process by promising to plant a tree for every product sold from its in-house brand, Detox Mode, and its Sustainability Collection, including the Sustainability Set, which consists of a reusable bag, a reusable silicone sandwich bag, and reusable bamboo straws. The initiative includes a customer-based social media campaign as well. The brand has promised to plant a tree whenever someone posts on Instagram one of three graphics from its website, which all read “Sustainability starts now,” tags the Detox Market, and uses the hashtag #sustainabilitystartsnow. At the time of this post, the Detox Market has planted over 55,000 trees.

It’s hard to believe the humble drinking straw has become Public Enemy No. 1, but here we are. As it turns out, the permanent existence of billions of disposable-yet-indelible straws is a growing environmental concern. Single-use plastic drinking straws are polluting beaches, clogging up inland waterways, and destroying ocean ecosystems. A 2017 study published in Science Advances magazine revealed that upwards of 8.3 billion plastic straws currently pollute beaches around the world. That’s more than the one straw per person on the entire planet. One estimate puts the number of disposable straws used (and then trashed) at 500 million per day. There may soon come a time when these ubiquitous drinking aids are as hard to find as an ice cube in France, with cities, major companies, and small businesses alike enforcing disposable straw bans. But some critics consider the recent attention on straws an outsized reaction given that plastic straws comprise less than 1% of the total amount of plastic waste. But what if you really love a straw? And what if you or a loved one needs to use straws because of physical or developmental limitations? What’s an environmentally-conscious consumer to do? Enter the “sustainable” straw. These (more) environmentally friendly, reusable drinking tools are now sold widely, but deciding which type to try can feel daunting. Do you go silicone? Stainless steel? Both at the same time? There's a lot to consider when it comes to something as mundane as getting liquids into your body.     You still have to consider the environment   Picking the right option goes beyond your preferred drinking style. If you're motivated by a desire to put at least a tiny dent in the breathtaking amount of plastic waste, you should consider the life cycle and production process of your reusable straw choice. Hard plastic reusable straws, for example, are only marginally more environmentally friendly than disposable varieties. They aren’t ever going to decompose; the manufacturing process is environmentally problematic.   Silicone is widely considered a better environmental choice than plastic, but it is not biodegradable and its manufacture requires non-renewable energy sources like natural gas and oil. It can be recycled, but you’ll need to seek out a suitable facility near you or, more likely, use a mail service like TerraCycle.   Stainless steel products are also a big step ahead of plastics, but alas, they're not perfect either. Though stainless steel is technically biodegradable, that process can take centuries depending on various climate factors. But it is recyclable, so when it’s finally time for your stainless steel straw to move on to greener pastures, just recycle it as you would any other metal. Today’s stainless straw is tomorrow’s washing machine drum.   Even considering the limitations, reusable straws last much, much longer than their wimpy plastic counterparts. If it’s true that the average person uses over 60,000 disposable straws between the ages of 5 and 65, the impact of an increasing number of people turning to reusable versions quickly becomes clear.   In an attempt to sort through the many reusable straws on offer, I put five different products — all priced under $20 for 5-10 straws — through a durability and use test. I tried bending the stainless steel varieties and tying the silicone straws into pretty bows to see if they’d split. I shoved them indiscriminately into the dishwasher, realistically anticipating the future. I even allowed my straw-obsessed kitten to carry a few off to his secret hiding place. On the durability front, all the varieties held up well. I also tried drinking various liquids from each type of straw; generally, they all fit the suckability bill just fine, with a few caveats.

Hundreds of dancers and families gather together for the University of Iowa Dance Marathon Big Event each year, and new sustainable practices within the student organization aim to help reduce the waste that a group that size can create.   Starting this year, Dance Marathon is recommending that returning dancers reuse their bags from last year and will utilize TerraCycle, a waste management company, to recycle items that may not typically be considered recyclable.   At the beginning of this academic year, Dance Marathon surveyed returning dancers on whether they would reuse their bags from the previous year, said Dance Marathon Sustainability Chair Katelyn Murhammer. While new dancers receive a bag to put things in when they get their paperwork at check-in, she said returning dancers would arrive already with a bag.   Around 50 dancers said they would be interested in reusing their bags to help reduce the amount the organization needed to buy and divert the amount of waste the bags could create, Murhammer said.   Dance Marathon will also use TerraCycle to recycle items such as chip bags and granola bar wrappers, Murhammer said. A special bin that the organization paid for through the green-initiatives fund will be filled at the event and sent back to the TerraCycle company to be repurposed, she added.   “I think it’s especially important for an organization as large as ours. With more than 3,000 people here in the IMU at one time, it’s going to be really important that we’re being sustainable because what we do is going to have a big impact with that many people,” Murhammer said. “So I think it’s good for people to be aware of sustainability things we have going on and to know how to do it.”   The organization will continue its practice from last academic year of having waste diversion stations at meals, Murhammer said. Volunteers and Dance Marathon leadership will make sure items that can be composted and recycled are put in the right bins at each meal, she said.   The UI Office of Sustainability helps with the Dance Marathon sustainability committee with the organization’s composting and recycling efforts, said UI Office of Sustainability Recycling Coordinator Beth MacKenzie. The chair of the committee meets with the UI team in the fall to discuss new efforts for the academic year, MacKenzie said.   The two work to incorporate sustainability into more than just the Big Event, she continued, but also into their smaller events throughout the year.   In the past, the organization has used old T-shirts to make pillows and create decor for the event using recycled materials, she said. “They reach a large audience,” MacKenzie said. “So when Dance Marathon displays sustainability as an important piece of their organization, that shows other people that sustainability is important.”   First-time dancer Lauren Davis said there would be a substantial amount of waste if Dance Marathon participants brought their own disposable water bottles instead of being provided with reusable ones. She added that TerraCycle will likely be beneficial for the Dance Marathon.   “People are probably snacking a lot, and because there are so many people here, it would just be really nice to have little, smaller things [like granola bar wrappers and chip bags], not just water bottles and paper to be recycled,” Davis said.  

Hundreds of dancers and families gather together for the University of Iowa Dance Marathon Big Event each year, and new sustainable practices within the student organization aim to help reduce the waste that a group that size can create.   Starting this year, Dance Marathon is recommending that returning dancers reuse their bags from last year and will utilize TerraCycle, a waste management company, to recycle items that may not typically be considered recyclable.   At the beginning of this academic year, Dance Marathon surveyed returning dancers on whether they would reuse their bags from the previous year, said Dance Marathon Sustainability Chair Katelyn Murhammer. While new dancers receive a bag to put things in when they get their paperwork at check-in, she said returning dancers would arrive already with a bag.   Around 50 dancers said they would be interested in reusing their bags to help reduce the amount the organization needed to buy and divert the amount of waste the bags could create, Murhammer said.   Dance Marathon will also use TerraCycle to recycle items such as chip bags and granola bar wrappers, Murhammer said. A special bin that the organization paid for through the green-initiatives fund will be filled at the event and sent back to the TerraCycle company to be repurposed, she added.   “I think it’s especially important for an organization as large as ours. With more than 3,000 people here in the IMU at one time, it’s going to be really important that we’re being sustainable because what we do is going to have a big impact with that many people,” Murhammer said. “So I think it’s good for people to be aware of sustainability things we have going on and to know how to do it.”   The organization will continue its practice from last academic year of having waste diversion stations at meals, Murhammer said. Volunteers and Dance Marathon leadership will make sure items that can be composted and recycled are put in the right bins at each meal, she said.   The UI Office of Sustainability helps with the Dance Marathon sustainability committee with the organization’s composting and recycling efforts, said UI Office of Sustainability Recycling Coordinator Beth MacKenzie. The chair of the committee meets with the UI team in the fall to discuss new efforts for the academic year, MacKenzie said.   The two work to incorporate sustainability into more than just the Big Event, she continued, but also into their smaller events throughout the year.   In the past, the organization has used old T-shirts to make pillows and create decor for the event using recycled materials, she said. “They reach a large audience,” MacKenzie said. “So when Dance Marathon displays sustainability as an important piece of their organization, that shows other people that sustainability is important.”   First-time dancer Lauren Davis said there would be a substantial amount of waste if Dance Marathon participants brought their own disposable water bottles instead of being provided with reusable ones. She added that TerraCycle will likely be beneficial for the Dance Marathon.   “People are probably snacking a lot, and because there are so many people here, it would just be really nice to have little, smaller things [like granola bar wrappers and chip bags], not just water bottles and paper to be recycled,” Davis said.

Dear Recyclebank: In Vermont, more and more people are using wood pellet stoves for heating. Each ton of pellets is 50 bags and I use about 3 tons, so that is a lot of bags to dispose of. The plastic bags they come in say "Please Recycle", however, I am unable to find a place that will accept them — where should they go? –Frank B. Dear Frank: Pellet stoves are becoming a very popular home heating solution for good reason. Wood pellets are made of waste products like sawdust, lumber mill scrap, and trees that are unsuitable for lumber, so little energy is needed to obtain the raw product. Pellet stoves are cost-effective and energy efficient. According to the California Air Resources Board, pellet stoves are the most efficient and least polluting of new stove designs, including electric and gas fireplaces. Plus, the Department of Energy states that pellet stoves are the cleanest solid-fuel residential heating appliances. When it comes to your home energy use’s impact on climate change, pellet stoves are a smart move. However, none of the energy benefits of pellet stoves change the fact that most wood pellets are packaged in hard-to-recycle plastic bags. When you consider that the average homeowner will go through approximately two to three tons of wood pellets per heating season, you end up with a lot of plastic bag waste. The most important thing you can do is reach out to the manufacturer of your wood pellets to express your dissatisfaction with their packaging; the Rutland County Solid Waste District suggests you ask what actions the company is currently taking to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging, and express that you would be interested in participating in a bag take-back program. The next best option is to avoid the bags all together and buy in bulk. But what about the bags you already have? The first step to recycling your wood pellet bags is to call your waste hauler or drop-off center to find out if they’ll accept them. Many municipalities will not accept thin plastic packaging at all, especially in your recycling container. If they do accept thin plastic films in general, it’s possible they still may not accept wood pellet bags because they don’t have the resources to inspect, rinse, and dry the bags to remove wood-pellet debris. If you cannot recycle your pellet bags in the traditional methods, see if your local grocery store or pharmacy has a plastic bag drop-off container at the entrance. Check if they accept the type of plastic your pellets are packaged in, and if they do, simply rinse and dry the bags at home, then bring them to the store for recycling. A more pricey yet effective solution for ethical bag disposal is obtaining a Terracycle Zero Waste Plastic Packaging Box. For a flat rate, Terracycle will send you a storage box, a return shipping label, and will process your recyclables. This is a good choice for stockpiled bags. Another way to reduce the environmental cost of your wood pellets is to reuse the bags. The simplest reuse for wood pellet bags is to use them as replacement garbage and recycling bags. They are also quite useful in the garden as frost covers for small plants, liners for planters for easy repotting, and as flowerbed liners to prevent weed growth. If you’re particularly creative, save your bags so that you can make a water blob for your kids (or the kid in you) to play with this summer.

Roncesvalles Dental Centre has taken a major step in going green — and they’re not compromising the quality of their dental products to do so.   The dental office is the latest business in Toronto to join TerraCycle’s Zero Waste Box program, an initiative that gives patients and community members the opportunity to recycle toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, caps, packaging, and floss containers — items that cannot be recycled at home.   Office manager Leah Lavergne said the decision to join the initiative and put an oral care waste box in their office came from the influx of requests they were getting to supply bamboo toothbrushes to patients.   “That’s the big craze, and we know that there’s a problem with plastic toothbrushes and where they end up, and we didn’t want to contribute more and more and more, and so we wanted to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint, help the environment, give patients an option,” she said.   Lavergne added that the dental office couldn’t initially find a bamboo toothbrush that met their professional standards (though they just recently found one) and they also knew that some patients were loyal to the plastic toothbrushes they already used.   As a result, they decided joining the TerraCycle program was their best option.   “The community is pretty excited about it ... we’ve had a pretty positive response. We have a lot of businesses that are on board as well,” she said.   Shaye DiPasquale, of TerraCycle, said it's exciting to see more dental practices across Canada embracing their program.   “Collecting and recycling hard-to-recycle oral care waste doesn't have to be a difficult practice. It can be as straightforward as collecting your family's toothbrushes, empty floss containers and toothpaste tubes and dropping them off at your dentist's office during your next visit, thanks to the efforts of dental practices like Roncesvalles Dental Centre,” she said.   Lavergne said Roncesvalles Dental Centre also plans to work with local waste reduction group Roncy Reduces on further initiatives in the future.   Tina Soldovieri, founder of Roncy Reduces, said the TerraCycle program is a great start for the dental centre.   She added that not only does it provide the opportunity for people to recycle these difficult items, but it creates the opportunity for conversation and gets people thinking about how they can be more conscious about reducing their own footprint.   “I think (the initiative) is really cool, because we know all these items go to a landfill,” Soldovieri said. “And apart from that, most plastic, even if it is supposedly recyclable, goes in the landfill. But to send something to TerraCycle means you really don’t want it to go there — you’re not even taking the chance. I think that’s really cool because all of our toothbrushes will be (in the landfills) longer than we live.”  

Look up natural on and you will find a simple definition: “Existing in or formed by nature (opposed to artificial).” So you might think that it should be pretty easy to pick out which cleaning products are natural and which aren’t. Well think again. Just like other things in life — nutrition labels, clothing sizes, dating profiles — the ingredient list on “natural” products can be mighty misleading. But there are brands out there trying to change that.   No, it’s not that brands are trying to make their toxic ingredients more visible to us as consumers, but instead, there are brands popping up that are trying to do away with the toxic ingredients all together. Clean and cruelty-free beauty (that includes men’s skin care you guys) continues to get a lot of news coverage, but clean homecare? Not quite as much.   That’s not to say there aren’t new options and better practices that are becoming more available both in accessibility as well as cost. Terracycle, which we use here at AskMen HQ, makes recycling those hard-to-recycle objects much easier — think chip bags and gum wrappers. Loop, a new initiative from Terracycle, employs a broader tactic by partnering with mega brands such as Unilever and Kroger and acts as a storefront for well known products in fully recyclable packaging you receive and send back over and over again which creates something of a ... loop.   You’re not looking for the same dishwasher liquid or glass cleaner you’ve always used just in a reusable package? You want something that’s not going to end up in the landfill or pollute our shared water supply? We hear you and we agree. That’s why we dug deep, and out of all the natural, non-toxic, eco-friendly brands we could find out there, we picked these 15 best natural cleaning products because they look great, work well and don’t cost a fortune.   Blueland might be one of the easiest eco-friendly brands around at the moment. If you have ever dropped the fizzy old school Alka-Seltzer for headache relief, then you have already figured out how to use Blueland. The brand’s founder Sarah Paiji has a simple mission — quit using so much damn plastic. After the realization that every single piece of plastic ever made — Every. Single. One. — remains on the Earth and most likely is living in the ocean somewhere, Paiji made a brand that uses what it calls the Forever Bottle. By combining a concentrated cleaning tablet comprised of natural derived, biodegradable ingredients with water, you have one of three super cleaners or a hand soap.       A force of nature this is indeed, if its shtick stands up, and as much as we could tell, it did, it kills 99.9 percent of germs with a combination of only salt, water, and vinegar. This futuristic brand uses ingredients as old as time to create an electric cleaner that covers everything from the diaper genie to baby’s binky. Yes, you heard that right. The same cleaner is not only safe enough for both, but provides both — and anything else — with a thorough, sanitized clean. The trick? Electricity. Using a minimal amount of solution, the Electrolyzer whisks up the ingredients with water to provide a gentle but powerful multi-purpose cleaner that can replace disinfectants, deodorizers, surface, bathroom and glass cleaners and lasts for two weeks.     Founder Mat Franklin (surprisingly not Aunt Fannie) is proud to prominently display the brand’s “No List” on the site laying out in great detail, the ingredients that you will not find in any of the brands products. The extensive offering includes probiotic cleaners and soaps, vinegar cleaners and even pest and mosquito solutions — all made from quality plant-based ingredients, probiotics and essential oils. Franklin prefers to leave “natural” out of the equation since the word itself can mean nothing and everything, all at once. You can read more about Aunt Fannie’s — and in turn, all cleaning products — here.     A theme you may be catching onto here is that products that are good for you and good for the earth are more often than not, good for your wallet too. Dropps makes laundry and dishwashing pods you can just drop(p) right in and go about your business. Made from eco-friendly ingredients, the detergent isn’t the only thing that is good for the earth. The water soluble pod membrane itself is made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) which dissolves in your washer and enters the water stream eventually breaking down to water and carbon dioxide.       With one of the more comprehensive ingredient lists available for review, Common Good also happens to have the least amount of frill to its packaging — which is a big plus in our book. Given that most packaging is glass, and all is designed to be reused over and over again, if our mood or decour changes, this brand will still clean well while blending in perfectly.     Don’t want to ever run out of your all-purpose, glass or floor cleaner? You might want to consider Better Life, since you can buy five gallons at a time in recyclable boxes. The Better Life claim-to-fame is that its American-made formulas biodegrade up to five times faster than leading natural and conventional cleaners — meaning they are basically not just good for the environment, but they might be amazing.     Started after Kate Jakubas was studying for her Masters degree in Environmental Engineering and learned that cleaning ingredients didn’t have to be listed on products. Which, if you ask us, doesn't make a lick of sense. It didn’t to Jakubas either, so she formulated her own vegetable soap (as you do when you’re about to be a Environmental Engineer) and discovered she could offer better products that were rooted in simple ingredients. Now, these MADE SAFE certified, made-in-Chicago products are proof she was headed in the right direction.   Another bulk-to-go brand that makes keeping all your cleaning supplies on hand is Attitude. Sure, while it offers laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid and all-purpose cleaner in half gallon cardboard containers, it also gives you the option to tack on EWG Verified shampoo, shower gel and hand soap in bulk as well.     Call a truce on the fight between green and clean and use Dr. Diann Pert’s EWG Verified simple, safe cleaning products — Truce. (See what we did there?) The Truce mission is to not to wait until being told what to do, but rather doing what needs to be done to produce the best possible product.     If we could join a cult to have all of our products look this good, we probably would. Luckily it’s not necessary to abandon the non-believers and drink the Kool-Aid. Instead, you just have to buy the products and use them. The cleaners are great, but what we really, really love about this brand is the upscale design of the bottles themselves. The no-slip grip vessels are dishwasher safe and shatter resistant and the brand’s coconut derived formula is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).     Do you want to clean well? Then do we have a brand for you! (Sorry, we had to.) CleanWell products were born from a father's love for his son. After learning the use of household products loaded with unsafe chemicals made his son's life living with an immune system disorder even harder, he created his own products to use instead — CleanWell. Given its origin story, it would make sense that keeping concoctions kid-friendly would be a big goal, while also killing 99.9 percent of germs around the house and leaving a fresh lemongrass scent behind.     One bottle really can do it all, if that bottle is the Branch Basics Concentrate. By adding various amounts of water, depending on the cleaner’s purpose, the Concentrate can make up to three all-purpose bottles, three bathroom bottles, three glass cleaner bottles, three foaming hand wash bottles and 64 full loads of laundry. That’s a lot of clean out of one bottle of all-natural green goodness.     If there is a theme to the green clean movement, it’s parents wanting the best for their kids. Puracy is no exception. One of the best sellers in the category on Amazon, founders Sean Busch and Paul Tracy can sleep easy in their naturally clean houses knowing they are making the world a better place. But it’s not just Busch and Tracy that make Puracy a good brand to reach for, the team includes a Magna Cum Laude honored, American Board of Dermatology Double Board Certified dermatologist, a pediatric doctor of osteopathic medicine and a doctor of philosophy and chemistry from MIT. You know, just a few folks who might know a thing or two about how to make green, clean formulas safe enough for the whole family.   You can’t have a gathering of good-for-the-Earth cleaning products and not find Method somewhere amongst them. Sure, the scale of Method makes it hard to believe that it can keep up (or … down?) with the smaller guys, but it takes it’s accountability very seriously. With a mission to continue to provide affordable, green products to the masses, it’s working towards lowering carbon emissions, reducing water usage and hitting 99 percent diverted waste footprint by the end of 2020. Are they perfect? No. Are they better than most of the big brands you’re going to find while scrolling through Amazon — very likely.   These aren’t the only cleaning products out there with a mission to do a better job at keeping your home clean and the earth green, but they are all a great place to start. Whether you decision is based on budget or you’re a bit more bougie, the future holds only more great cleaning products for us all to enjoy.  

Move over, Outbacks, Foresters, and Imprezas. Subaru of America has gotten into the outdoor furniture business.   Two years ago, the Camden-headquartered automotive corporation teamed up with TerraCycle, a Trenton-based recycling company, to create tables, chairs, and benches out of discarded, hard-to-recycle items: snack wrappers, disposable cups, lids, plastic straws, and coffee, tea, and creamer cups.   Some of the furniture is now permanently installed outside Camden City Hall. Other pieces have graced the Philadelphia Auto Show and the Philadelphia Flower Show. The items are among more than 100 the company has donated as part of its Subaru Loves the Earth program. The initiative aims to reduce waste, safeguard resources for future generations, and preserve natural spaces.   “We’ve collected over 3 million pounds of waste,” said Amy Strawbridge, Subaru’s brand partnership and experiential marketing manager.     The recyclable materials are collected in Zero Waste Boxes supplied by TerraCycle that are pre-labeled and shipped to Subaru’s 589 U.S. dealerships for use by Subaru employees and the community.   “We’re collecting items that traditional recyclers don’t want,” said Rhandi Goodman, global vice president of zero waste at TerraCycle. “We have good success in making sure we are getting the proper [materials]," which stay in the United States and are not shipped abroad. When a full box is returned to TerraCycle, an empty one is automatically sent out to the dealer. Subaru’s Strawbridge estimates that the car company has filled about 3,500 boxes.   While some customers drop off items when they’re shopping for cars, others make a special trip to the dealerships. Subaru dealers in Seattle, San Francisco, and New England have returned the most waste, while Philadelphia-area dealers fall in the middle of the pack.   At TerraCycle, the recyclable materials are separated out, cleaned, and turned into pellets. Paper-based and organic waste are composted. Metals are melted down.     The pellets are used to mold the parts for park benches, picnic tables, and playground equipment, which can then be ordered from a catalog by individual Subaru dealerships and donated to their local communities.   “All of the pieces are molded like a typical manufacturer," would mold them, said TerraCycle’s Goodman. “We work with a couple of vendors to produce the benches.”   “They’re super sturdy," added Dominick Infante, director of communications for the automaker.   Subaru hopes to expand the program into other locations, Infante said. For example, the company is now in a year-long pilot program with outdoor retailer REI to collect snack wrappers in 148 REI store locations. And plans are in the works to collect additional tough-to-recycle materials like pet-food bags and coffee bags.   “We don’t see an end in sight,” said Infante. “We just see this growing.”

Move over, Outbacks, Foresters, and Imprezas. Subaru of America has gotten into the outdoor furniture business.   Two years ago, the Camden-headquartered automotive corporation teamed up with TerraCycle, a Trenton-based recycling company, to create tables, chairs, and benches out of discarded, hard-to-recycle items: snack wrappers, disposable cups, lids, plastic straws, and coffee, tea, and creamer cups.   Some of the furniture is now permanently installed outside Camden City Hall. Other pieces have graced the Philadelphia Auto Show and the Philadelphia Flower Show. The items are among more than 100 the company has donated as part of its Subaru Loves the Earth program. The initiative aims to reduce waste, safeguard resources for future generations, and preserve natural spaces.   “We’ve collected over 3 million pounds of waste,” said Amy Strawbridge, Subaru’s brand partnership and experiential marketing manager.     The recyclable materials are collected in Zero Waste Boxes supplied by TerraCycle that are pre-labeled and shipped to Subaru’s 589 U.S. dealerships for use by Subaru employees and the community.   “We’re collecting items that traditional recyclers don’t want,” said Rhandi Goodman, global vice president of zero waste at TerraCycle. “We have good success in making sure we are getting the proper [materials]," which stay in the United States and are not shipped abroad. When a full box is returned to TerraCycle, an empty one is automatically sent out to the dealer. Subaru’s Strawbridge estimates that the car company has filled about 3,500 boxes.   While some customers drop off items when they’re shopping for cars, others make a special trip to the dealerships. Subaru dealers in Seattle, San Francisco, and New England have returned the most waste, while Philadelphia-area dealers fall in the middle of the pack.   At TerraCycle, the recyclable materials are separated out, cleaned, and turned into pellets. Paper-based and organic waste are composted. Metals are melted down.     The pellets are used to mold the parts for park benches, picnic tables, and playground equipment, which can then be ordered from a catalog by individual Subaru dealerships and donated to their local communities.   “All of the pieces are molded like a typical manufacturer," would mold them, said TerraCycle’s Goodman. “We work with a couple of vendors to produce the benches.”   “They’re super sturdy," added Dominick Infante, director of communications for the automaker.   Subaru hopes to expand the program into other locations, Infante said. For example, the company is now in a year-long pilot program with outdoor retailer REI to collect snack wrappers in 148 REI store locations. And plans are in the works to collect additional tough-to-recycle materials like pet-food bags and coffee bags.   “We don’t see an end in sight,” said Infante. “We just see this growing.”

The more I learn about recycling, the more I lose my illusions.   In the 7Rs of PH Effect for a zero waste lifestyle, there is Recycling. However, during my conferences and workshops, I tell people that it is a last resort, which is in the hierarchy just before the trash. I tell them that there are other alternatives, most of the time.   But sometimes it is faster and easier to get a product packaged in a recyclable container.   Then there was this idea of launching the project to recover the Halloween candy packaging and send it to TerraCycle, which recycles it. An idea which had a huge success and which still makes small ones today. Schools and businesses across Quebec have decided to follow suit and get the boxes. Some municipalities are even taking steps to join. A success you say? But with this project, I also saw the other side of the coin. Despite the clear indications, we find everything in these boxes and bags that we collected. Jars with a yogurt base, apple hearts, half-eaten candies, candies still wrapped, candy wrappings completely stuck in unidentified substances…  

It gave me a good idea of what could end up in sorting centers in Quebec.

I continued to read about sorting centers, about recycling. I had discussions on the subject with people around me. Each time, I realized that recycling is not so effective and that it is a very small dressing on a very big boo.   Recycling helps to reduce awareness.   But recycling requires so much energy and resources! And when I learned that we often send our materials to be recycled in China and elsewhere in the world, the surprise was as immense as the ships that transport them. Is our recycling solution to send our stuff to the other side of the world? Yes, I was naive.   So there you go, I made the decision to put my recycling bin on a diet. Worse, I'm going to make him do a long fast. Knowing that too much of what goes to recycling will end up in the wild, I prefer to reduce it at the source more than ever.   I know, it's drastic. Am I going to throw my recyclable stuff in the trash? Of course not ! But I will pay triple attention to what I consume, what I use. I will stop eating certain foods that are not sold in bulk. And I'm not going to eat candies other than loose ones anymore. Anyway, the mere sight of another package of candy makes me want to eat it!