3p Contributor: Tom Szaky
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TerraCycle Heads North with Kraft Canada
Photo Courtesy of TerraCycle
The end of this year has been a return to our roots for TerraCycle in many ways. First with the opening of our first retail store a few blocks from where I first had a basement “office,” and now we’re going north to Canada–where I grew up and where we had our first major sales of product, to The Home Depot and Walmart Canada.
This new Canadian endeavor is, in fact, with Kraft–the first company with which we made a major agreement to collect branded waste in order to upcycle it into new products. In two years, our US partnership withKraft on Capri Sun juice packs has resulted in more than 35,000 collection points, millions of pouches collected, and more than $250,000 donated to a variety of causes.
So working in Canada is just a matter of replicating what we’ve done down here in the US, in a different longitude, right? Not quite.
Canadians are not the same people as Americans, and though their land mass is quite large in relation to the US, their population is not. At just shy of 34 million people, it is a fraction of America’s more 300 million people.
Are we making a mistake launching in such a relatively smaller market? I say no.
Help TerraCycle Find New Life for Old Toothbrushes
Toothbrush Terrain. Image credit: krossbow on Flickr.
Look at your toothbrush. It’s likely made of some form of plastic, rubber, and inventive design engineering, packed into a small space. After your initial decision process, where color, teeth cleaning wizardry, and perhaps recycled content and recyclability came into play, you don’t really notice it that much anymore. It’s become part of the background.
Until now.
Now being the start of another round of winter colds, one of the preventative practices being to throw away your toothbrush and get a new one. Hang on, you know I can’t let that be how it goes!
Wake Up Call: Interview with the Global Campaign for Climate Action
Something amazing is happening. This week in NYC, Climate Week is in progress, with leaders from 90 countries gathering for a United Nations-organized event focused on climate change. And there, along with 1000 events in 100 countries on September 21st, an unprecedented alliance of people and groups will be gathering for a truly global “Wake Up Call” to world leaders as part of the TckTckTck campaign.
In NYC today, people will form a giant earth moving through an hourglass: the ‘Human Countdown’. The event aims to demonstrate that the time to act on climate change is running out. The event’s actions are many, but its goal is singular, according to Kumi Naidoo, Chair of the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA): “Ultimately we want world leaders to commit to attending the talks in Copenhagen , where they must sign a deal that is fair, ambitious, binding and that reflects the latest science.”
I recently had a chance to interview Naidoo about TckTckTck, and asked:
“What about this will help leaders see this as more than a well organized protest with colorful, but ultimately dismissable people involved?” to which Naidoo firmly answered, “This isn’t a protest. We’re looking to have a proactive influence on the decision making process. The size and breadth of the TckTckTck coalition demonstrates that this is something that leaders should listen to. If world leaders see support from their electorate for a fair, ambitious and binding deal at Copenhagen, they will have the space they need to take action. TckTckTck is about mobilizing a massive number of people from a broad cross-section of society and ensuring that world leaders take action in Copenhagen.”
Re-Imagining the Scotch Tape Dispenser Without Changing it at All
If you’re reading this, it’s pretty likely you recycle. You sort. You do your best (most of the time) But what about those plastic Scotch Tape dispensers you use? Most recyclers don’t take them. You don’t have much use for them, being empty. What do you do? Toss them in the recycle bin and hope for the best, or just toss them out in the trash?
We’d like to propose a different option, one we hope encourages other companies to do the same. Starting in September we will be collecting Scotch Tape dispensers from the public, giving them the choice of which charity 2 cents for each goes.
But instead of doing what we’re known for, taking packaging and finding a different use for it as is or sewing it like fabric into bags, umbrellas etc—we will be giving them back to 3M to use for the exact same use they were before—tape dispensers. This is as close to Cradle to Cradle design as we’ve seen, but without the need to radically redesign the product packaging. Or redesign at all, in this case.
Can a Global Company Be Local?
Globalization has long gotten a bad rap. And for good reason. So many companies arrogantly decide that, one way or another, what they create will become what people desire, unaltered, in countries around the world. And in many cases, it’s worked, homogenizing cultures, at least on an aesthetic level, with no real benefit to the people on an economic or environmental level. It’s largely pop culture crap that ends up adding to landfills when done.
What if globalization could be flipped on its head, taking a business model and localizing it wherever it is, glocalizing if you will? That’s what we’re attempting to do with our upcoming launch in the UK in September together with Kraft UK. Customizing a business to be culturally sensitive and appropriate in other countries is nothing new, but what might be new is to what depth it’s being done here.
On a surface level, we are replicating what we’ve succeeded in doing here in the US – collecting waste with the help of the public and companies, and upcycling it into both product packaging as is, repurposed, and entirely new executions by turning layers of material into sewable fabric.
But things differ vastly from there.
Tom Szaky: Thinking In and Outside the Wrapper
When you think of socially responsible companies, Mars, the candy-focused food company is not likely to be the first one that comes to mind. And yet, perhaps it will, as they have recently made two monumental commitments, with action and money to back it up. They encompass both what’s in and outside the wrapper.
100 million tons of sustainably certified cocoa bean purchases by 2020 sounds impressive, but especially so when it’s with $10+ million a year being spent to enable the right conditions for there to be enough supply for such a goal. And this is not just for some niche candy lines, but all chocolate used in Mars products.
UTZ Certified is who they’re working with on this initiative. While not as well known by you and I as, say, TransfairUSA, their work is of no less substance. Along with source sustainability certification and verification of supportive workplace practices, they actively reach out to farmers and those in the surrounding communities the viability of and market for sustainably grown cocoa.
Does Everybody Have a Waste Problem?
Subaru, a company that you may assume creates significant waste, recycles 97% of its manufacturing waste and reuses the rest to generate electricity. (Photo: Eric Castro on Flickr)
I make products out of what would otherwise be garbage. That’s all we at TerraCycle do. So of course garbage is an issue that’s front of mind for us. But what about your company? What about any company? Does every company have a waste problem? Or turned around, a waste opportunity? Is there any company that doesn’t have a waste problem?
When Do Partnerships Make Sense?
How Terracycle is partnering with name brands to upcycle everyday goods.
Have you heard of a company called FAB? I’m guessing not, and at the same time, it’s a safe bet you’ve seen their products. And depending on how old you are, you have been running towards or running away from them for years. And fast.
FAB has licenses for a huge variety of today’s biggest pop culture brands: Paul Frank, Hello Kitty, Hannah Montana, Nickelodeon, Hello Kitty, Disney, Marvel, and on. From backpacks to snow globes to “novelty clocks,” their collective licensing and manufacturing might create an enormous amount of trinkets that will likely end up in the trash months after purchase.
And we’re now partnered with them.
What Is More Valuable: Material or People’s Time?
So many coffee lovers have switched to single portion delivery devices produced by a variety of brands, including Tassimo, Flavia and Green Mountain. The coffee taste is always fresh, perfectly brewed and one doesn’t waste extra coffee left from brewing a full pot.
The single dose cartridge is a composite of aluminum, plastic and coffee. Its used cartridge is currently not recyclable and is what Bill McDonough would call a “monstrous hybrid” since all three parts on their own are either compostable or recyclable, but together they make a unit that isn’t readily recyclable and thus is headed to the landfill. (The same is true for a wide range of common products too long to list here).
The solution to waste streams like this is to collect them and “dissemble.” The separation of the three basic materials is hard to automate and likely must be done by hand, at which point, the coffee can be easily be composted and the plastic and aluminum recycled.
Garbage Moguls: The New TerraCycle Reality TV Show
After 3 years of pitching networks, meeting with various producers, and all of the other Hollywood headaches we finally have our own TerraCycle Reality TV Show. Garbage Moguls, which debuts on the National Geographic Channel on Earth Day (4/22) at 9pm EST/PST, follows our team at TerraCycle as we take waste (in Episode 1, Oreo Wrappers and Coca-Cola Billboards) and figure out how to upcycle them into products (Oreo wrappers will become kites and billboards will be messenger bags) and then finally sell them to a major retailer (Oreo wrapper kites to Wal-Mart and Billboard messenger bags to Office Max). So tune in and also don’t forget to spread the word.
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