Is there zero chance to reach zero waste?
TerraCycle loves to find recycling opportunities in strange places, and we’ve been largely consumer-facing since we launched the Drink Pouch Brigade with Capri Sun and Honest Kids in 2007. Our business-to-consumer programs have been successful for such varied groups (including schools, churches, offices, and even individuals) that we didn’t start delving into business-to-business programs until last year.
We launched a program with Kimberly Clark Professional to collect their cleanroom garments as well as hoods, boots, and slippers. We’ve recently introduced a pilot program to collect nitrile gloves, and have been testing those collections at one of the collecting locations at Life Technologies. With the recent success of this program and pilot program, it dawned on me that while TerraCycle has always talked about and publicized consumer facing programs and consumer facing recycling, there is opportunity for an even larger recycling impact with business to business programs.
The waste produced by billion dollar manufacturing and research industries dwarfs the amount of waste produced in a small neighborhood. According to the Gasification Technologies Council, American manufacturers produce 7.6 billion tons of industrial in just one year. Construction, road projects, housing projects and the like aren’t even included in that number; those activities produce 136 million tons in one year.
Companies such as Subaru have already instituted effective zero-waste programs; their Indiana manufacturing plant diverts more than 90 percent of waste produced. They partner with other companies to take away the waste produced from their business, such as paint sludge, which is dried into a powder and then mixed into compounds that make guardrail blocks and parking lot bumpers.
The chemicals that come out of those factories seem to me to be more harmful than the food packaging that is coming out of individual homes. Both are incredibly important, but considering the lack of movement in business to business recycling so far, the potential is huge. The question for those of us in the packaging industry is where can we make these business-to-business programs work in packaging?
I think there are a variety of places we can look here. If a piece of packaging can be made from another’s waste, there is no excuse for us to not be using it. If there’s a byproduct from packaging that we produce that can be towards what another manufacturer needs, we should be setting up a system to harness what could be potentially useful. Recycling in the packaging world isn’t just about what consumers do with the packaging when they’ve finished sipping their juice or eating their chips, and it’s not just about where we get the materials to make the packaging (new or recycled). It’s also about the other details, and the recycling we can do where people least expect it.
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Deepak commented:
I did not really like this thraed, Wooden Matches Block Sustainable Packaging Design. I truly mean no disrespect, nevertheless I think you happen to be a slight hasty when you published the following posting. I guess its just simply different in contrast to the high quality content of which we have been all used to.
Aziza commented:
I did not really like this taerhd, Wooden Matches Block Sustainable Packaging Design. I truly mean no disrespect, nevertheless I think you happen to be a slight hasty when you published the following posting. I guess its just simply different in contrast to the high quality content of which we have been all used to.
E=mc2 commented:
There is no such thing as waste.
The landfills of today are the mines of tomorrow.
AMZ commented:
More consumption = more waste
More consumption in developing economies = a lot more waste and a lot less recycling (scavengers like formal jobs)
Sanitation is not as high on the sustainability agenda as the green marketing of low footprint stuff.
Eric H. commented:
Is there zero chance to reach zero waste? The answer lies in the energy cost to transform current “matter” into something new with a useful life that justifies the energy transformation cost. Will humans think and make decisions based on energy transformation costs? Not likely.
Steven Klein commented:
The Eco-Connect Bottle System is a simple patented technology that repurposes empty beverage containers (in their present form)into creative educational toys or building insulation in third world countries or countries that need to rebuild due to a national disaster.
If water bottles featuring this technology were donated to Haiti, the children could build simple toys and soccer goals from the empties. Then the empties could be utilized as building insulation to help rebuild the nation. Right now, the millions of water bottles that were donated to Haiti are just clogging up their landfills.
LG commented:
The general public does not listen to scientific rational. Business to Business recyling may in fact be the best way to reduce and lead the way to sustainability but unless a consumer recyling program is established there will not be any reason for the politicians who make these decisions to change anything. Flexible packaging such as the capri sun pouches are a step in the right direction to sustainability not because of what happens to them after but because of all the smaller eco footprint that lead up to their production. We need to walk before we run, zero waste is a great concept but there are a few things that need to change before we get there because it would be a paradigm shift in the way we look at packaging as a whole.
Monica commented:
Hello, do you really think recycling is making a difference since the Rio global summit in 1992? The global warming or agenda 21 idea is slowly being implented, but how do you know it is really working?
Monica commented:
This sounds like a good idea to recycle more products we use everyday. I am just wondering how long this can go on. How long have people been recycling, since the 1970s or 1990s? The global warming, agenda 21 summit, in Rio talked about ways to be sustainable. Do you think corps and indivuduals are really making a difference all these years later?
