ATLANTA: August 02, 2017. UPS is helping New Jersey-based Terracycle turn hard-to-recycle items into trashcans and park benches while diverting 40 million pounds of waste from landfills in the past five years.
Founded in 2001, TerraCycle offers free recycling programs funded by brands, manufacturers and retailers to replace the linear 'take, make and dispose' economic model with a circular 'restore, regenerate and reuse' approach.
Partners include L'Oreal, Colgate-Palmolive, Honest Tea, Henkel, Procter & Gamble, BIC, Tom's of Maine, PepsiCo, The North Face, Entenmann's, 3M and Bausch + Lomb.
To date over 64 million people in 21 countries have collected and recycled 3.8 billion units of waste while raising US$15.6 million dollars for charities.
Patrick Browne, UPS director of Global Sustainability, says his company's global network, Customs support and small package technology is helping TerraCycle reach several hundred thousand more consumer and business customers around the world.
"To meet our goal to reuse, upcycle and recycle waste we knew we had to make the process convenient and efficient for our customers," said TerraCycle founder and chief executive officer Tom Szaky (right). "UPS helps us solve a variety of logistics challenges including navigating complex global shipping and Customs regulations, which has allowed us to grow more quickly and ultimately move to a circular economy that benefits us all."
In 2014 TerraCycle launched its Zero Waste Box program, which allows anyone to recycle virtually anything in their home or business. This year the company is working with Procter & Gamble to produce the world's first recyclable shampoo bottle made from beach plastic. The Ocean Conservancy says plastic debris makes up around 85 percent of all the trash collected from beaches, waterways and oceans.
In a related development the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said fertilizer runoff into the Mississippi from agribusiness has created a marine life "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico larger than New Jersey.
Last year the United States Geological Survey reported that 1,150,000 tonnes of nitrogen pollution from America's heartland ended up in the Gulf of Mexico. By comparison, the one-off BP oil spill in 2010 was 670,800 tonnes.
According to the Environmental Working Group, agriculture is a leading source of pollution in the U.S. that is largely exempt from federal laws designed to protect drinking water.
