Comments on: Snack Wrappers Get UpCycled

By: Kashana Stewart

Kashana Stewart — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:37:58 +0000

how much money do you get for recyled frito bags

By: Organic Green Planet

Organic Green Planet — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:32:23 +0000

This is such a great idea! It’s about time the major contributors to our landfill problems, teamed up with a company that is trying to change the way we dispose of trash. The products are fashionable and trendy. Love It!! Thanks TerraCycle for moving forward with an innovated way to save our planet.

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:05:05 +0000

I’m apart of my high school’s environment group; I was wondering if you had any information on the whereabouts of a place near Livingston, MI that would have the bags. I understand that these would not be available at the moment, but when they are it would be nice to have those. And being able to advertise like that would allow for the school awareness to rise.

Thank you.

By: Albe Zakes

Albe Zakes — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:47:01 +0000

Albe from TerraCycle here.Thanks to all for your wonderful comment and the Earth911 for being an incredible information source for everything green!

Trey – Send ‘em to us no matter torn or dirty. The most damaged wrappers we shred and then fuse making them a consistent thick material we’ll be using to bring products to market late this year or early 2010

Tim – Good point, that could be a potential problem! But we actually sell several million dollars worth of upcycled wrapper products every year. More like 10 of thousands of units, if not hundreds of thousands of units. However when we do have more material then we can use (which does happen!) we sort it, inventory it and start looking for other applications to use the material.

Tim C. – Thank you for your concern! We need consumers to question everything and you mention two incredible books/concepts. I’ll start at the top, don’t worry when a consumer is done with a TC product, they can return it to use through any of our recycling stations to be reused in a new facet (we add highly worn product into our new shred and fuse system!) In fact, Bill McDonough, the gentleman who coined the term Cradle-to-Cradle, has said publicly that our business model is one of the only true cradle-to-cradle models out there today.

As for corporations using recyclable or reusable packaging, I whole heartedly agree. However, there would need to be consumer demand, government regulation and corporate cooperation like NEVER before seen in modern American Society. More than one can realistically ask of a small start company, right? I too hope that one day the American Consumer decides to demand recyclable and re-usability instead of convenience, price and safety. But a lot will have to change. In the meantime, I know you don’t want the trillions of packages that WILL be produced and consumed this year to all go to landfill. I mean whether us environmentalists like it or not they will be produced, so we might as well find something to do with them, right?

Let us not make the perfect, the enemy of the good. Paul Hawken, the co-author of Natural Capitalism which you also appropriately referenced, also publicly supports TerraCycle and even wrote the forward to our founder and CEO’s new book. We at TerraCycle know we are not some magic solution or the ultimate eco-answer. But we also know we kept over 100 million wrappers out of landfill last years and donated almost 200,000 dollars to school and non-profits. We know, these solutions we offer are not perfect but we know these programs will keep 3,000 tons of candy wrappers and over 5 million chip bags out of landfill.

Thanks to all for your interest and comments and to talk further my email is my ‘first name’ @ terraycle.net

By: Tim C

Tim C — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:09:54 +0000

This is not up-cylcling, this is greenwashing. All this will eventually end up in the land fill. How about these companies do some real good by making their bags really upcyclable by not making their chip bags monstrous hybrids when they are first manufactured? This type of environmentalism is not a help and only perpetuates the perception held by most in main stream America that the green movement is a fringe joke. It’s also old school, now defunct environmentalism of reusing preserve jars for art projects, drinking glasses, and flower pots. Natural Capitalism and cradle to cradle concepts are what will make the biggest difference b/c they can be applied to every industry on a massive scale, not this nonsense.

By: Wesley Joseph

Wesley Joseph — Sun, 10 May 2009 05:26:38 +0000

Trey, you’re not the only one who does that — even if you’re careful, they often end up ripped.

I participate in the cork recycling brigade with Terracycle and must say that they make it easy on you. They offer prepaid shipping labels for UPS. So you print the label, stick it on just about any box (within the size limits) and ship it off to them. Easy!

By: tim

tim — Sun, 10 May 2009 04:21:02 +0000

Have you wondered that the number of chip bags/drink pouches/wrappers collected are in the millions and the products made ( and actually sold) are actually in the hundreds. What do you think happens to the other millions of waste material?

I have a feeling they go to the landfill….

By: Trey Granger

Trey Granger — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:52:27 +0000

I wonder if the wrappers have to be un-torn to send to TerraCycle. I’ve always been bad at opening candy bars or chip bags without getting a tear in the wrapper. Am I the only one who does this?