What is Terracycle?
TerraCycle is a highly-awarded, international
upcycling and recycling company that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging
and products, that would otherwise be destined for landfills, and repurposes
the material into affordable, innovative products. More than just a recycling
company, TerraCycle strives to be a driving force behind increasing environmental
awareness and action. Their goal is to be a trusted resource for families, schools,
communities, and corporations to find tips, stats, facts. TerraCycle is widely
considered the world’s leader in the collection and reuse of non-recyclable,
post-consumer waste. You can go to their website at www.terracycle.com to learn more about them.
LEARN MORE ABOUT TERRACYCLE by clicking HERE
On May 26th at The Park Slope Food Coop's General Meeting the vote to bring TerraCycle to the Coop will happen. Show up and make your voice heard.
Here is the report and proposal that will be voted on.
Environmental
Committee Report
By Rosemary
Calderon
The Environmental
Committee brings you more opportunities for recycling: PSFC partnering with
TerraCycle.
In January,
February and March the Environmental Committee held three recycling waste
collections to introduce coop members to the TerraCycle program for free collection
of waste currently not accepted by New York City recycling. Over the 3 months, awareness of the
collection spread and participation grew larger each time. Members asked for
more ongoing collections. The message is
clear: Coop members are committed to recycling!
The next
step is to weave these collections into the fabric of our coop lifestyle by
creating ongoing monthly collections by way of instituting a minimum of two
work shifts per month; three work shifts if there is enough demand. Each work shift will have a minimum of 3 work
slots. Advancing these collections to
regular monthly work shifts can only happen if coop members vote in favor of
creating these monthly work shifts at the upcoming General Meeting.
How does it work?
The PSFC
signs up for what are called TerraCycle “brigades.” These brigades are non-contractual and free
to join. TerraCycle provides free shipping labels for the collected packaging materials
to be sent to them. The coop incurs no fees to participate in any of the
brigades.
Exactly what sorts of waste are we collecting?
Currently
the EC is focusing on the following Brigades:
1) Cling
plastic wrap, plastic sandwich bags and all sizes of zip lock plastic storage
bags--This will allow us to recycle not only the regular plastic sandwich and
larger storage bags, but more importantly, the small plastic bulk bags (though
NOT the larger roll bags or shopping bags) and cling wrap, for example, used on
bulk cheese. The bags and cling wrap do
not have to be cleaned and the pricing sticker can remain on the small bulk bags
and cling wrap.
2) Baby food
pouches and caps—any brand
3) Cereal
bag liners—these are the liners that come in cereal boxes, cracker boxes, the
larger bulk cereal bags not in boxes, and similar such liners
4) Energy
bar wrappers—any brand
5) Toothpaste
tubes---any brand
6) Brita
water filters and any part having to do with a Brita Water Filter system—other
water filter brands are also accepted
How does
this benefit coop members?
The benefit
to coop members is intrinsic in that it provides us the well-being of keeping
more waste out of the landfill. Additionally, once our waste is received and checked in to the TerraCycle facility,
the PSFC will be credited with any TerraCycle points we may have earned for
our waste. TerraCycle points can be redeemed for a variety of charitable gifts,
or a payment of $0.01 per point is made to non-profit organization or school of
our choice. We would direct any funds raised to non-profit
projects/organizations currently supported by the Coop—the soup kitchen,
environmental efforts, and supporting the establishment of more food coops.
We look for your support
to establish ongoing work shifts for monthly collections with a vote at the
upcoming General Meeting.
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