Reduce

While it may seem like “zero-waste” is becoming the new buzzword on the block, reusable products have been around since the beginning of forever and you probably already own many of them. Do reusable water bottles, thermal coffee mugs, and canvas shopping bags ring any bells? Without much effort, you can ease into a zero-waste lifestyle by opting to reach for one of these reusable items instead of their single-use counterparts.

Of course, reusables don’t do you, or the environment, any good if you don’t remember to use them. To avoid forgetting your canvas bag or thermal mug at home, try storing a few bags in your trunk and keeping a clean, empty mug in your car’s cup holder!

For products that come in complex packaging (i.e. your favorite ice cream or shampoo), it’s more difficult to make a direct swap when there are limited zero-waste alternatives available. Luckily, TerraCycle’s global reuse platform, Loop recently went nationwide, offering a convenient solution to shop for products from your favorite brands in durable, reusable packaging. The future is refillable, after all.

Compost

Did you know $218 billion worth of food is thrown away each year? That’s about 30% to 40% of all food produced in America. When this organic waste is placed into trash bags, the time needed for these materials to decompose increases from weeks to years.

It’s important to keep all plastics, even those labeled biodegradable or compostable, out of your at-home compost bin or pile, as these plastics will only degrade as they were intended to, in an industrial compost facility with just the right temperature and microbes.

The issue with industrial compostability is that it’s very limited in the US; specifically, only 4% of people in the US have access to industrial composting and a local composting program (of which 90% of industrial composters view compostable plastic as a contaminant to their feedstock, as a result separate it and dispose of it in landfills).

Home composting is something to try, but compostable materials still need the right combo of air, water and sunlight to turn over, which takes some care, so we recommend doing some research to make sure you don’t send up with a smelly pile of garbage instead of the nutrient plant food you are looking for.

If you don’t have an accessible green space at your home or apartment grounds, an easy, clean and effective way to put your kitchen scraps and yard trimmings to good use is TerraCycle Home. TerraCycle Home will pick up your organics and ensure it is properly composted.

Basic Recycling

For starters, let’s define what recycling actually is: the collection of discarded items (also known as “waste”) and their transformation into material for new products. Recycling reduces the use of new, “virgin” material and the need to extract additional resources from the earth.

What’s the problem? Today, public recycling is a bit of a mess. Single-stream recycling programs (where all recyclables — paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum — are collected in one bin instead of separated) cause cross-contamination, and good-intentioned residents often resort to “wish-cycling” (or, aspirational recycling) because they don’t know for sure what is accepted.

The complexities of today’s most common household waste items don’t fit in the limited capabilities of recyclers today. Low oil prices, the bans on imported recyclables, and the latest trends in packaging design (spouts, films, multi-layer wrappers, etc.) make it harder to recycle and more economical to dispose and produce new.

It comes down to this: if the costs of recycling (which include collection, processing, transport, and storage) are greater than what a material can be profitably sold for (this is the case with most plastics today), it is considered non-recyclable. Aluminum, for example, is endlessly recyclable with strong demand all over the world, but plastic is more cheaply produced new.

As a result, municipalities and local governments struggle with the high costs of sustaining recycling programs and have been shuttering them across the country (COVID-19 put additional strain on already declining programs), instead sending recyclables straight to landfills. Millions of households in the country lack access to basic recycling services, and only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled. The rest has been landfilled, incinerated, or littered in the environment and the world’s oceans.

TerraCycle Home is a way around all that. An affordable and convenient solution that feels like curbside recycling, without the limitations and unreliability, TerraCycle can help your household stay on track for a safe, sustainable future…

Advanced Recycling

Public recycling is economically motivated, so most common items don’t belong in your blue bin. Increasingly, items that are top of mind as recyclable are not accepted through public programs or accepted without an end-market and sent to landfill anyway. Not all municipalities accept glass containers, for instance, and only 4% of organics (food waste, yard trimmings) are composted through local industrial recycling programs.

However, TerraCycle® proves that everything is technically recyclable, including candy and snack wrappers, plastic packaging, shoes, razor blades, and old and broken toys. Even the taboo, the “yucky,” like chewing gum and cigarette butts—the most littered item in the world— are recycled into formats manufacturers and brands use for new production.

TerraCycle Home works around the limitations of traditional recycling programs through innovative, advanced products that make the economics work for you. The turnkey Zero Waste Box™ system has you covered. This is a convenient and all-inclusive option for households to lighten their footprint.

The cost of the box covers collection, recycling and processing. But instead of wondering when the truck will come or why so many common items are ending up in the trash, you can be sure that it’ll be collected on time and kept out of the landfill with TerraCycle Home.