Michelle Smith was a customer of Trashless, an online grocery store that delivers fresh, local food in reusable containers such as mason jars. Each time you order, you put out the containers from the previous order. Those containers are picked up, cleaned and reused.   Smith says it struck her that she was doing everything she could to not create waste, but each month she would have big, empty dog food bags left over. She tried her hand at using online ordering for pet food and treats, but those companies always delivered food in huge boxes with a lot of packing materials.   Smith created Trashless Pet Store, an online pet food delivery service that now Trashless Pet Store now operates under the umbrella of Trashless, with the same delivery drivers. It has 10 different pet food brands that are animal welfare certified.     Trashless Pet Store doesn't use boxes when it delivers pet food, and it will pick up the used food bags to be recycled by TerraCycle. The bags then become materials used in plastic chairs, watering cans and leashes, among other things.   You can order samples of food to have your pet try before buying a big bag. Those samples come in mason jars.   It's also partnered with Austin Pets Alive to pick up their bags to have them recycled. Since August, it's picked up 600 bags that would have gone into the trash.   "It's practically a no-brainer," says Stephanie Bilbro, director of lifesaving operations at Austin Pets Alive. Instead of putting the bags in the trash, the staff just puts them in a tub for Trashless Pet Store to collect a couple of times a week. "It's silly not to do it, knowing that they are able to upcycle this stuff that would end up in our dumpster."   The Austin Pets Alive partnership was designed as a test project.   "Hopefully, it would be a great model for other shelters," Smith says. "It can make a huge impact."  

LANCASTER – A dream 30 years in the making is coming to fruition for author J. Anthony Garreffi.   The proceeds from the sale of his “I Caught Santa” children’s book series, which focuses on good deeds Santa Claus is caught doing, are helping to raise money for various local charities and organizations.   Garreffi, who grew up in Clinton and has lived in Lancaster since 2003 with his wife and their teenage son, was inspired to write “A Christmax Carol” nearly three decades ago after being struck with a thought.   “When you are a kid you think, what does Santa Claus do during the year?” he said. “Helping people and making the world a better place.”   In the book, Santa is caught red-handed taking presents from a home to give to children in need, all while disguised as a homeless person. Three years ago, Garreffi decided it was finally time to publish the book and donate the proceeds to charity.   “I reached out to a local organization, WHEAT in Clinton, which provides services to community members in need,” he said. “I knew they would be a great partner.”   Garreffi pitched the idea to WHEAT Community Connections Director Jodi Breidel and told her that all of the proceeds from the sale of the book would go towards WHEAT’s mission.   “She was so excited and of course said yes,” Garreffi said.   He has since written two more “I Caught Santa” books, each with their own charitable cause recipient that Garreffi has partnered with that matches “the mission” of each book.   “Each book has a built-in cause with Santa doing something wonderful,” he said. “The books have a way to make a difference and raise money and awareness.”   The second book, “Respect Your Toys,” focuses on the issue of toy waste.   “This is a tough one, a terrible problem,” Garreffi said. “I thought, how can I do this so kids can get involved?”   In the book, Santa and his elves have a large scale recycling program at the North Pole. Some characters from book one become animated and show up in book two to help Santa – Paws the cat, and Stix the monkey doll.   “Even they can’t keep up with toys coming back to recycle,” Garreffi said.   Garreffi reached out to TerraCycle to be the business partner for the book, a company that runs a volunteer-based recycling platform to collect non-recyclable pre-consumer and post-consumer waste, and then partners with corporate donors or municipalities to turn it into raw material to be used in new products – including toys.   “They will recycle 100% of any broken toys,” Garreffi said.   Last year Garreffi held a broken toy drive, which he said required “some explaining” for parents, but that in the end they gathered up a lot of toys to send to TerraCycle.   “People were happy to go into their kids’ rooms and gather up broken toys,” he said.   Garreffi will be hosting another broken toy drive at the reading he will be doing at the Festival of Trees at Leominster City Hall on Dec. 10, from 4 to 6 p.m., part of his 2020 ‘3rd Times A Charm’ book tour.     The third book, “My Own Sweet Home,” focuses on adoption of both humans and pets. The subject is close to Garreffi’s heart – he and his wife’s 17-year-old son is adopted.   “He is the inspiration for the third book,” Garreffi said of his son. “He is such a good kid; we are fortunate and blessed.”   Garreffi partnered with Neady Cats in Sterling for ‘My Own Sweet Home’, a no-kill shelter that has placed over 3,000 cats to forever homes since 2015.   Each of the books has its own companion song that Garreffi wrote and recorded that reflect the theme of the book, with him singing and playing acoustic guitar.   Garreffi has recruited local businesses to sponsor the books, which is a win win – the business gets marketing and publicity and the charities benefit.   “The model seems to resonate well with the public,” he said. “Especially this year, businesses have really stepped up. We gave them a great product to share with the community and went on tour and spoke about the mission.”   Avidia Bank and Macaroni Kid Leominster are two of the business sponsors, the latter of which is sponsoring the readings at the Festival of Trees. Garreffi publishes the books under his own independent media publishing company, Ever Learn Media.   The pandemic set the effort back a bit this year. Last year Garreffi held 22 events at libraries, recreation centers, schools and more across the region; this year there were eight events.   “COVID has changed our approach this year,” he said.   Yet Garreffi is not letting that dampen his spirit.   “We’ve got three books, three missions, and three ways to make a positive difference in our communities,” Garreffi said. “If we all do a little extra, we can accomplish so much more. Especially this year we need that spirit to rise.”   The books are sold at events for $5 each and can also be purchased on Amazon.   For more information including upcoming events visit icaughtsanta.org and follow I Caught Santa on Facebook.

BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP, NJ-- Bordentown Township Environmental Commission is reminding residents that there is an easy way to discard trash and help the environment at the same time.   The Township is participating in TerraCycle's Zero-Waste program, which has the goal of collecting non-recyclable packaging to reduce waste and help keep tons of the Township's garbage from ending up in the landfill.   TerraCycle, which is based in Trenton, partners with municipalities around the world to provide zero-waste solutions for certain waste streams so that the discarded items can be re-purposed.   Bordentown residents are encouraged to save their candy wrappers, chip and snack bags, gum wrappers and granola bar wrappers and bring them to the Bordentown Township Public Works building, where a dedicated collection container is in place to discard the items.   In addition, Bordentown Township is also participating in TerraCycle and Colgate's Oral Care Recycling Program.   Residents can drop off any brand of used or empty oral care products and packaging, such as toothpaste tubes, caps and cartons, toothbrushes and their outer packaging and dental floss containers, to the Public Works Building. The discarded items are then sent to TerraCycle by the Township, where they are upcycled into new, eco-friendly and affordable products to be made available at major retailers.   The Public Works Building's hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 3:30pm, and Saturday from 9am to 1pm. The building is located at 266 Crosswicks Road.   For more information about the Township's participation in the TerraCycle program, click HERE.

The National Museums of Scotland are recycling disposable face masks which could otherwise end up in landfill or be littered on streets. The Edinburgh-based museum is using a solution for PPE which isn’t recyclable through conventional facilities, giving them a new life. The TerraCycle collection system is via Zero Waste Boxes which encourage people to dispose of PPE instead of throwing the items away. When full, the boxes are returned for processing and the collected waste is cleaned and melted into pellets. The material can be used to manufacture products including outdoor furniture, plastic shipping pallets, decking, watering cans, storage containers, bins, and tubes for construction..

SPARTA, NJ – The Green Team at Sparta Middle School is collecting candy wrappers.  The student organizer Abby Weisbeck said the group was looking for a project to “make Halloween more green.” The wrappers brought in by Sparta will be added to many others ultimately to be collected by Terracycle.  Weisbeck said their internet research led them to the organization with will take the wrappers and turn them into park benches, tables and playground equipment. TerraCycle offers recycling programs for items that are difficult to recycle.  For this campaign they are accepting individual, multipack and family size snack bags and wrappers, including candy, chip and granola wrappers.  Food waste and carboard cartons are not part of this initiative. The Green Team’s co-advisor Douglass Crouse and Cara Johnson said they are partnering with Subaru of Newton’s general manager Chris Dexter. Weisbeck said she is working with Bridget and five others though “many more students helped out.”  The Green Team was formed last year, Weisbeck said but this is the first project they took on this year.  She said they were inspired by a “plastic free” day initiative in the school last year and from “talking with other students.” They are still collecting wrappers and plan to continue through the school year. “This is the first year,” Crouse said. “In future years, we hope to expand to other schools."

VetPartners has launched a major environmental project at 130 of its largest sites by trialling zero-waste boxes for used PPE. The boxes are provided by TerraCycle – a company that specialises in hard-to-recycle waste including PPE masks, gloves and aprons worn by clinical team members when treating patients. All PPE not contaminated with animal or pharmaceutical waste can be recycled as part of the scheme, and is collected and quarantined for 72 hours to ensure it is safe.

Our family has been living pretty low waste for about a decade.

• We buy very little, preferring to thrift, DIY, swap or borrow where possible;
• We are dedicated to supporting local – receiving weekly farm deliveries, promoting and supporting farmers’ markets;
• We avoid plastic and packaging as much as possible, bringing reusables or refilling in bulk;
• We spend a lot of time in the kitchen making plant-based meals and snacks;
• We grow a garden, have honey bees and even grow mushrooms; and
• We compost like nobody’s business!

With all of these eco-friendly (and economical) habits, our waste production is pretty minimal. In years past, we typically only put out our garbage bin once a month – or even less – and have significantly reduced our recyclables!

ONE BIN, ONE YEAR CHALLENGE

BUT, in 2020, we embarked on a whole new challenge – inspired by British eco-duo, Ander and Adam of GoxuBoys – the One Bin, One Year Challenge! I wanted to show that it can be done – even as a family of 4, living a pretty typical life (2 working parents, 2 school-aged kids, commuting and running the “daily grind”) in Canada’s capital city. In 2018, I had already removed the trash bin from our kitchen, so the biggest obstacle now was to actually track our monthly waste (i.e. weigh it, analyze it.. and prevent my husband from putting it all to the curb for a full 12 months!!) ^^ Our monthly trash collection, visible beside the sink Instead of a hidden-beneath-your-counters trash bin, we have been keeping a cookie jar in plain sight beside our kitchen sink to collect our monthly garbage (note: we gradually moved away from the cookie jar to a single clear chip bag – easier access and containment).

PRELIMINARY RESULTS

^^ Tracking trash from January – September 2020 Here is a sneak-peak of our results so far, plus a couple highlights (full report to come early in 2021):

• On average, our family of 4 produces about 300 grams of kitchen trash per month (typically about 1/2 a grocery bag full)
• The biggest ‘culprit’ for our household is chip bags – to counter this, we have invested in a small “plastic packaging” Terracycle Zero Waste box so that once our tracking is complete, we can still send these chip bags somewhere other than our precious landfill! Also of note, we opt to source our chips locally from Against the Grain, a heritage grain farm near Ottawa. While their chips still come in plastic, we appreciate that our snacks are locally-made, chemical free, and not transported all over the world to get to our plates.
• Our trash output reduced by about 60% during the summer months – likely because we were growing a lot ourselves, and/or sourcing from local farms/markets while crops were in season (thanks to Funny Duck Farms, Hidden Trails, Just Food Farm stand, among others!)
• We have never used the City of Ottawa’s Green Bin (compost) program – rather, we collect our own compost in our backyard to generate soil for our garden; however, if you’re interested in doing a waste audit yourself, composting (in any format) will be your biggest ally – as soon as you eliminate food and organic scraps from your waste stream, your trash is significantly reduced AND you decrease greenhouse gas emissions, automatically, JUST by composting!
• We regularly pick up trash in our neighbourhood, and on the biggest 2 trash collection days of the year (Earth Day in April, and Cleaning the Capital in September) collected approximately 3000g and 5000g, respectively (Note: these totals were NOT counted in our household waste tracking report, but thought it would be interesting to monitor them as well.)
• 
• ^^ Earth Day pick up and Cleaning the Capital pick up (not included in our household waste audit)

  SO, WHAT’S NEXT?

  With less than 2 months to go in 2020, stay tuned to get the full breakdown and report of our waste output! Spoiler alert: we are totally going to meet our #1bin1year goal 

JUNO BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — Loggerhead Marinelife Center's "Unwrap the Waves" program is back for its fifth Halloween season. The center and several other organizations in the area collect candy wrappers to 100 percent recycled. "We work with both the schools and community partners to do this," said Lindsay French, the education coordinator for Loggerhead.