While cans of pet food can usually be recycled, bags are a little trickier. Their hefty material falls somewhere between plastic and metal, leading many pet parents to do the confused shuffle between the trash and recycling bins every time they have an empty one. Unfortunately, these bags belong in the trashcan more often than not. Since most of them are made from a few layers of material (usually some combination of aluminum and plastic), they tend to be too expensive for local recyclers to process.

“Each layer of a multilayer package would have to be separated and recycled individually for maximum recovery. For curbside recycling programs, this is often inefficient and costly,” explains Mary Ellen Dowd, a communications associate at TerraCycle, an innovative waste management company.

TerraCycle has a mission to “eliminate the idea of waste” by creating recycling solutions for previously unrecyclable items; your pooch’s favorite dry food included. By partnering with global leaders, businesses, communities, and individuals, they’ve overcome the financial barriers and managed to give over 527,000 pounds of pet food packaging a second life as park benches, picnic tables, playgrounds, and more.

Here are a few ways to join their programs:

1. Brand-supported recycling

Depending on the type of pet food you buy, you may actually be able to ship your empties to TerraCycle for free. The company has partnered with the following brands on send-in programs. Simply sign up on the brand’s page and you’ll be able to place your clean-and-dried containers in either any box you have laying around or a pre-paid bag that they send to you. Both options come with pre-paid shipping labels. Once you send your packaging back to Terracycle, they’ll be able to break it down to be reused.

• Royal Canin (dog and cat food)

• A Pup Above (dog food)

• “I And Love And You” (dog and cat food)

• Karma (dog food)

• Nulo® Challenger™ (dog food)

• Open Farm® (dog and cat food)

• Tailored (dog food)

• Weruva (dog and cat food)

2. Drop-off

Dog and cat food companies Earthborn Holistic and Wellness® have synched up with TerraCycle to establish public dropoff points for their packaging. Look at the map on these brand pages to find a drop-off near you. (It’ll likely be a pet food or supply store.)

3. Zero-waste box

If you don’t buy from companies with an established relationship with TerraCycle, you can still send in your empties to be recycled — you’ll just have to pay for it. Once you buy a Pet Food Packaging Zero Waste Box, you can fill it with any clean pet food bag, box, or container you want to recycle. Though these boxes aren’t cheap (the smallest size is $110), you can share the cost with friends, neighbors, or co-workers.

“A great thing with zero-waste boxes is that it doesn’t have to be just an individual collecting,” Dowd notes. Your pet-friendly apartment building, office, or school could all go in on a box together, for example. Once your box is full, bring it to a UPS shipping location and pat yourself on the back for helping your community avoid tons of trash.

When it comes to pet food packaging, “wishcycling” — or throwing it in the recycling bin and hoping for the best — usually isn’t the answer. Instead, look into programs like TerraCycle that take the guesswork out of it and ensure your pet’s dinnertime stays a low-waste affair.

‘Beauty product packaging is often composed of a variety of types of material,’ explains Stephen Clarke, Head of Communications at TerraCycle Europe. ‘For example — mirrored glass, cardboard sleeves, paper inserts, expanded plastic foam and more have been known to be used in cosmetics packaging– sometimes all in one item.’ This makes recycling them incredibly difficult. However, TerraCycle has partnered with Garnier to create a free recycling programme for beauty packaging, and these can be taken to one of their allocated drop-off locations. Find your nearest one here.

 Medical-products maker Cytiva and recycler TerraCycle are working to convert multi-material syringe filters into useable products.  

When recycling is mentioned, the focus is often on big—big goals, big volumes and so forth. But in order to truly achieve a circular economy, you have to think both big and small. Syringe filters, which are about the size of a checkers game piece, are a key part of any lab setting but are not reusable and can make up a large portion of waste from a facility. Based in Marlborough, Mass., Cytiva, a global producer of medical, laboratory and other life-sciences products, makes more than 25 million syringe filters each year that are used in a variety of settings, from healthcare and pharmacies to monitoring air-pollution levels. Cytiva assembles the filters from components that are made by other firms. Cytiva estimates that industry-wide, hundreds of millions of filters are disposed of yearly. Recycling the filters has been complex as they contain a filter membrane that must be separated from the housing prior to recycling. The most common material used in the filters is polypropylene for the injection molded housings and a wide variety of materials for the filter membrane, including PVDF, PTFE, PET, nylon, polycarbonate, ceramic and  various fabrics. The filters often contain nonhazardous biomass as well. Cytiva assembles the filters using ultrasonic welding.

“We call it ‘recycling the unrecyclable’ because it truly hasn’t been done before.”

Ryan Walker, sustainability program leader at Cytiva, said the company is focused on ways to increase sustainability. The idea of recycling syringe filters came up, but they knew it would be a challenge. “Because of both what our customers put through the filters, and the encapsulation of this membrane, no one had ever figured out how to recycle these before,” Walker says. “And so our customers are left with one of two options: they can either landfill them, or they can incinerate them.” Recycler TerraCycle in Trenton, N.J., partners with consumer-product companies, retailers and cities to recycle typically unrecyclable products and packaging that would otherwise end up in the landfill. The company has solved complex recycling challenges like diapers and cigarette filters in the past and also has experience recycling materials from lab environments and handling mixed plastics.  “I remember looking at the materials, the filter and syringes, and thought, ‘Maybe we could do this,’” said Ernel Simpson, TerraCycle’s director of polymer engineering. “I had a conversation with some of the people on my team and we got to look at this and we found a method for recycling.” Cytiva and TerraCycle have started a new program to convert these syringe filters into useable products. Cytiva’s goal is to recycle 500,000 syringe filters a year, roughly equating to 3500 lb of filtration devices. The pilot project with TerraCycle will focus initially on the U.S. and only on customers that are not generating biological or hazardous waste. “We call it ‘recycling the unrecyclable’ because it truly hasn’t been done before,” Walker said. The way the program works is that TerraCycle boxes are provided to labs to collect used filters. Each box can contain approximately 10,000 syringe filters. Once collected, the filters will be recycled into material suitable for use in industrial applications, such as composite decking, shipping pallets, and various compression molded products. POET, a bioethanol company based in Sioux Falls, S.D., recently enrolled in the program, and five of its facilities nationwide are now participating. Syringe filters are the second-highest share of plastic waste in the lab.

Size Reduction

One thing that always happens in recycling is size reduction. While these filters are small to begin with, Simpson says TerraCycle reduces it even more in order to remove the filter from the housing as they are typically of different materials. “We wanted a certain particle sizes so that, when the filter and housing are separated, we reduce the loss of material. The smaller the particle size is, the more losses you incur, and we wanted to reduce any loss to a minimum,” he said. “So we had a specific particle size that we shred the material to.” Separation is usually by density, using float/sink technology. Most often, TerraCycle is working with syringe filters with PP housings. “We want to have polypropylene as clean as possible for possible reuse at Cytiva or elsewhere. The purity is what we're looking for,” Simpson says. “We are able to separate the filters from the housing after size reduction. So we have the filter material, and we have the PP housing, so we're able to get the PP and granulate that and use it as a feedstock.”

“We want to have polypropylene as clean as possible for possible reuse at Cytiva or elsewhere.”

The non-PP filter membrane materials separated from the PP housings are currently being stored. The researchers in this pilot project hope to find a way to recycle those materials as well. The intent is to recycle 100% of everything that they collect, if possible. Cytiva receives a monthly report from TerraCycle on how many syringe filters have been recycled. Walker says Cytiva would eventually like to buy back some of the recycled feedstock and use it in some of their products. “While TerraCycle uses the material in things like park benches, in our ideal world, we'd love to go much more circular,” Walker explains. While at present, Cytiva wouldn’t be able to use recycled material in actual syringe filters, the firm could potentially use it in packaging and other products. “So we could say to customers that when you recycle it and buy from us again, it is a circular solution,” Walker notes. Recycling half a million syringe filters is the goal for the first year and Walker anticipates increasing that every year. “While we're in our infancy with this project, we already have thousands of syringe filters that have been recycled currently, and more are coming in. And we're hoping that more will come in at a faster pace.”

Kevin Flynn, global vice president of TerraCycle Operations and director of TerraCycle Regulated Waste, stated:

Since the start of the pandemic and the trend of companies embracing work-from-home schedules, IT departments, no matter the size or the industry require some form of dependable data sanitization. The need to outfit workers with the latest remote-ready tech while reliably managing data on old devices and recycling them appropriately has exploded. In answer, TerraCycle Regulated Waste has created a robust suite of services that allow businesses and consumers alike to streamline their e-waste recycling requirements and ITAD needs with the type of turnkey recycling solutions that TerraCycle is known for.

The products and services are listed below.

• E-Waste Mail Back Recycling: Available for purchase through Amazon, the EasyPak Electronics Recycling Container – Serialized and the EasyPak WFH & Workspace Electronics Recycling Container – Serialized were designed to offer a one-step solution to recycle any e-waste that can be powered-on or is home to a chip or board parts. This includes, but is not limited to, LEDS, computers, monitors, telecom gear, fax machines and televisions. These safe, convenient and data-secure methods for the recycling and disposition of electronics include a detailed report with make/model/serial numbers of the disposed of items that provides proof that they were securely recycled.
• Bulk E-Waste Freight Recycling: The BulkPak E-waste Serialized Recycling Kit offers IT managers a turnkey effective solution for the recycling bulk quantities of e-waste that can be powered-on or is home to a chip or board parts, including CPU’s, monitors and e-scrap.
• ITAD Machine Solutions: For individual purchase and utilized by TCRW to process the e-waste received in through the mail-back and freight solutions, TCRW offers two state-of-the-art systems that ensure that the data on the discarded electronic devices never fall into the wrong hands. They include:
  • Destroy-It Hard Drive Punch: At the touch of a button, the Destroy-It Hard Drive Punch makes discarded hard drives from PCs, laptops, notebooks, printers, copiers, and PDAs unreadable by punching a hardened steel die completely through the drive.
  • Degaussing Machine: To support the growing demand for user-friendly data erasure technology, TCRW now supplies high-speed and economical degaussing solutions.  This new line of degaussing products will provide your organization with the assurance that your media and data-bearing devices no longer contain any confidential information before being sent off site for recycling.

As an added incentive and level of security, TerraCycle Regulated Waste provides customers with a Certificate of Destruction to verify that the waste has been dismantled and all data storage components have been destroyed pursuant to all applicable laws including environmental and waste management regulations. Additionally, the destruction process will also ensure that all data equipment is destroyed and unusable in its original state. To learn about TerraCycle Regulated Waste and their ITAD solutions, visit the company’s new website.

Office supplies and equipment

As the United States turns a corner with the pandemic, workers are being asked to abandon their quarantine bubbles and return to the workplaces they left well over a year ago. However, many are returning to very different office environments as companies trash now unnecessary office equipment in response to either economic-related personnel cuts or employees’ widespread adoption of remote or hybrid schedules, as 44% of total U.S. workers are, according to Statista. Just as TerraCycle® provided innovative recycling solutions for the surplus of otherwise unrecyclable personal protective equipment (PPE) produced during the pandemic, the international recycling leader is back again with convenient solutions to address this new influx of unwanted office supplies. As office workers return to a downsized or modified workplace, TerraCycle’s Zero Waste Boxes provide a convenient recycling solution for nearly every conceivable piece of office waste generally not recyclable through most towns’ conventional recycling facilities. When placed in high-traffic areas like breakrooms or kitchens, Zero Waste Boxes provide “psychic income” to eco-minded employees and deliver an environmentally-friendly alternative to landfilling in the form of recycling — all while discouraging clutter throughout any newly renovated office, says the company. To recycle common forms of unwanted office supplies, TerraCycle offers the following Zero Waste Boxes:

• Office Supplies Zero Waste Box: To recycle tape dispensers, desk organizers, card and document filers, binders, calendars, labels, staplers, hole punchers, dividers, paper cutters, correction supplies, pens/pencils/markers, fasteners, paper clips, staples, binder clips and sticker and label sheet backing. Not a solution for e-waste like electronic staplers and label making machines.
• Office Separation Zero Waste Box: To recycle art supplies, books and magazines, eye wear, cleaning accessories, fabrics and clothing, interior home furnishings, media storage, office supplies, paper packaging, pet products (non-food), plastic packaging, plastic cards and shipping materials.
• Media Storage Zero Waste Box: To recycle any object or device capable of storing data (ie. audio, video) in analog or digital format including records, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs and DVDs, Blu Ray discs, floppy disks, memory sticks and external hard drives.
• E-Waste Zero Waste Box: To recycle any household or office e-waste including home phones, cell phones, computer cables and accessories, keyboards, VCR/DVD players, hand-held computers, digital music players, pagers, radios, cameras, video recorders, TVs, laptops, desktop computers and monitors, printers and scanners, digital cameras, copiers, typewriters, fax machines, stereos, tuners and turntables and receivers and speakers.

When full, the boxes can be returned to TerraCycle for processing, and the collected waste will be cleaned, melted and remolded to make new products. TerraCycle, a global provider of solutions to collect and repurpose complex waste streams, created the Zero Waste Box program to provide solutions for difficult-to-recycle waste that cannot be recycled through TerraCycle’s brand-sponsored, national recycling programs or via standard municipal recycling. Tom Szaky, CEO and founder of TerraCycle, remarked:

No matter if you’re implementing a hybrid schedule or if you’re planning to return to the office in full force this fall, our workplaces will likely begin to look a lot different compared to how we left them. TerraCycle’s goal is to make this transition as easy and as environmentally friendly as possible by giving your business the power to divert waste from landfills through our turn-key Zero Waste recycling solutions.

TerraCycle works with major manufacturers and retailers to recycle products and packaging that would normally be thrown away. To learn more about TerraCycle and its innovative recycling solutions for electronics, office waste, fluorescent bulbs, medwaste and sharps and more, visit the company’s website or click on the product links above.