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TerraCycle: Mecca for Hard to Recycle Items

I first heard about TerraCycle from a news piece about a woman in England who regularly cleaned up a local beach but was tired of not being able to recycle all the foil candy and chip wrappers she found. So, one day she went home, did some research and discovered TerraCycle, a company that recycles just about anything.The Trenton, New Jersey business offers inventive solutions to recycling pretty much all the packaging we scratch our heads and puzzle over. Foil candy wrappers, chip bags, cellophane, you name it, they can recycle it. The British beachcomber was ecstatic!

The TerraCycle mission is twofold: to recycle even the most difficult materials and,to offer products from well-known brands in reusable containers.

Here’s how it works, you order a container for collecting recyclables (they range from $100-$500 and can be placed in your apartment as well as in a common area of a building), fill it up with disposables, then send it back. You can buy a Terracycle container dedicated to one kind of item.  Want a container for your action figures or your shampoo bottles? You can get one. Can’t decide? Then you can order the All-In-One box.

Free options are also available for some specific brands. For example, Burt’s Bees and Lundberg Family Farms both sponsor free recycling for their own packaging. Use a lot of lip balm, eat a lot of specialty rice? This could work for you. Some companies sponsor drop-off sites for all brands of a specific product, like L'Occitane for beauty and Gillette for razors. There are way too many container options to mention here so I highly recommend going to TerraCycle.com and poking around.

Looking for a project to keep you and your kids busy this summer? TerraCycle also has DIY upcycling projects to satisfy your creative side. Check them out at: https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/about-terracycle/recycle_your_waste.

In addition to the residential aspect, TerraCycle works with corporations, small businesses and communities to help them find large-scale recycling solutions and start recycling campaigns.

Of course the ideal is to not have any items that need recycling in the first place. TerraCycle has a plan for that too. They offer products in reusable containers  (similar to TheWallyShop.co mentioned in last month’s newsletter). You order products online and they come in returnable containers inside a reusable tote. Customers send back the tote with the reusable containers to be refilled.  A Zero waste win for both the products and the shipping.

The rate at which we have filled up our landfills and fouled our water in the last 60 years is astonishing. Terracycle offers a dynamic solution to our throwaway culture. Their inventive system for reducing waste offers consumers, businesses and communities viable ways to cut down on the mountain of plastics filling up our landfills and oceans. So for all those things we’ve been puzzling over at the recycle bin, TerraCycle.com offers us a radical reset.

Christine Campbell

Advocacy Corner
Action Required by June 29th on Compost drop-off sites!

Curbside organics pickup is suspended for a year. New proposals are being discussed now in the City Council.

Please contact your NYC Council Member by June 29 (before the budget vote on June 30). 

Find council members here  https://council.nyc.gov/districts/

Ask them to:

  1. Immediately Restore the $7 million in the budget to reopen the existing community food scrap and textile drop-off sites.
  2. Vote yes on the the CORE Act, Intros 1942 & 1943the bill to mandate DSNY (Dept of Sanitation) to establish & operate at least 3 organics/textile recycling drop off sites per district

Read more about the campaign to Save our Compost in NYC here:
 https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11062020/new-york-city-compost-coronavirus?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202020-06-12%20Waste%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:27891%5D&utm_term=Waste%20Dive


Exciting News: A Federal Bill Regulating Plastics!
The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, introduced by Senator Tom Udall (Senate Bill #3263) and Representative Alan Lowenthal (House Bill #5845) is a major step in federal regulation of plastics. 

It addresses the absolutely broken state of plastic recycling in the U.S. It will shift the burden of cleanup to where it belongs – to the corporations that produce this waste. Read about the bill here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NCAJTNKdfuUQsmbqj8krYd3FZV3wb9b9/view

Here are two actions you can take now to support passage of this bill:

Sign up for district  Zoom meetings with our Congress members to urge them to co-sponsor this bill (organized by Brian Langloss at Oceana NYC): https://bit.ly/CongressionalDriveBFFPPA.

Write our Congress members to urge them to co sponsor the bill.  Beyond Plastics has provided the letter for a writing campaign: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/support-the-break-free-from-plastic-pollution-act

Thank you!  Your support is critical!

Personal Climate Friendly Actions

Plastics Free July is a campaign to reduce plastic waste through individual action. Find out how to get started here: https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/get-involved/what-you-can-do/category/getting-started/
To receive weekly tips and actions for your plastic free life sign up with 350Brooklyn here: https://350brooklyn.org/take-the-plastic-free-july-challenge/

Donate to Riverside Park Conservancy

Called the “Best park in NYC” by Gothamist, we UWS neighbors need to support our unique slice of green which gives us comfort and respite from the turmoil we face now. They urgently need our help to keep the park clean, safe and beautiful. Donate here https://riversideparknyc.org/donations/


 

Reading Corner

You’re Probably Inhaling Microplastics Right Now
A new study found plentiful evidence of these tiny particles in dust in the nation’s most remote places.By Janice Brahney  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/opinion/plastic-air-pollution.html

Projects to Bury Carbon Dioxide Get a Lift by Brad Plummer https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/climate/carbon-capture-tax-break.html

As the City Reopens, Five Ways to Reduce Waste and Save Green Jobs
http://www.centernyc.org/urban-matters-2/2020/6/18/as-the-city-reopens-five-ways-to-reduce-waste-and-save-green-jobs

NYC parks foresee financial losses at a time when we need them the most
https://ny.curbed.com/2020/5/29/21266767/nyc-parks-coronavirus-funding-budget

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