Tom Szacky,
Hello and good day my name is MarcosMangual intellectual idea giver for the CUT AND CAP idea used by BP Oil. I am a unlicsense electricain with great ideas. I have just watch 3 segments of your show and I have actually come up with several innovative ideas from the ones you have given on your GARBAGE MOGUL show. I think I can be a good, maybe great asset to you and your company. I have current inventions validated by scientist working for major univerties. I have no job nor any fancy degree but I can brainstorm with the best in the world atleast thats what my confidence exudes. Given the oppertunity I think I can push the envelope for creating a better world.
My observation of the show is that you might need a person like me who thinks outside of the box at times. My purpose for this letter is to hope that you can give me a chance in life to make something out of myself so my 4 kids can llok up to and say with great admiration, "that's my dad". I will give you my infinate amount of effort for giving me the oppertunity. With the money I can earn from being employed I could focus on patenting my ideas as well as suing BP for not giving me recognition or compensation for my intellectual idea.
Respectfully,
Marcos Mangual

PS
I would be willing to travel and live overseas since that is where my to youngest sons live.

Tom,
I can agree with your sentiment that we need to rethink 'end of life', but your article made me wonder a few things:

1) How many people really consider Ziploc a 'reusable' brand vs. a 'disposable' brand? Judging by the number of Ziploc bags I collected the first week we rolled out our Ziploc Terracycle brigade, not many. Sure, there are still some people around who rinse their bags out and reuse them, but I'm willing to be it's a small percentage of the people who buy these products.

2) What happens at the end of life for the coolers, trash cans, etc. that are being made out of these products? Will they again be upcycled or will they be landfilled?

I love Terracycle and think it's a fabulous stop-gap for the current status quo, but ultimately I think it's better if we start with sustainability instead of trying to figure out to do with a bunch of garbage that will never go away once it is created. Do we really need Ziploc bags when so many other things we use come in containers that can be reused? My kids take their lunch with snacks stored in empty butter containers instead of Ziploc bags. We'll still have to figure out something to do with the butter containers when they come to the end of their life, but one butter container = hundreds of Ziplocs.

It's great that Ziplocs don't have pthalates, but it's not as though they are "good" for the environment. And as far as product designers and recyclers needing to do the thinking, what is a recycler supposed to do about a product with 7 different types of materials solidly fused together as some drink bottles are currently sold? What about instead of designing products for reusability we design them for sustainability?

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Tom, you hit on a great topic. My company, Eco-Products - www.ecoproducts.com - has a brand of environmental foodservice disposables (cups, plates, containers, etc.) and we wrestle with this problem everyday. The current 1-7 coding system is confusing for consumers. We are involved in helping redefine the system through the ASTM, but even then the problem won't be solved. We have also started color coding some of our products when possible - for example having a green stripe on compostable cups. However, that's not the end-all solution either. My belief is that there needs to be more consumer education on recycling and investment in sorting equipment at recycling facilities. That's a tough issue to tackle though. I'm going to post a link to this article on my blog www.ecoramblings.com. Thanks for addressing this topic!

What about the large area of the country where there is no curbside recycling to place these 1-7 recyclables into. Think Florida for instance. Is that greenwashing?

What about the large area of the country where there is no curbside recycling to place these 1-7 recyclables into. Think Florida for instance. Is that greenwashing?

Thanks so much for share this value information with us, i never think this could be so easy to fix, seems you have a lot of practice.

A week ago I was discussing with friends about what CPGs would look like in ten years from now. One of my friends said that we might have to pay an extra tax called "the sustainable tax" that would take in account the carbon footprint of each packaged good that, for instance, would be bought at the grocery store. That way, the consumer would be forced to select goods that have less carbon footprint as per the product label, all unit price and quality being equal. Then, this could be called a "natural selection process" for producers since they will have to design more sustainable containers for their goods; some of them won't...

If such a continuous improvement process ever takes place, it would not be good for your business though! In fact, all the residual packaging material would be recyclable throughout the existing recycling infrastructure, meaning that your business would run out of "raw material"! Well, I don't think that it would be a threat for your business in ten years from now since I'm convinced that you will have evolved in order to adapt to the market changes. All the best to your tremendous business!

Dear Tom,

Your work is truely commendable. I hope TerraCycle comes to the UK and Europe, in some shape or form, bringing your values and entrepreneurial drive. The potential for 'Upcycling' in other waste streams are enormous. The corporate CSR partnership model you have adopted so successfully is an efficient way to scale and create the maiximum economic and environmental returns.

In answer to your question: Which do you think is more important, economically feasible, and environmentally sensible: Reducing packaging or reusing it?

I think BOTH. It is surely possible and desirable to reduce packaging and increase the reuse of it, from both an economic and environmental perspective. In fact economic, environmental and social factors are fundamentally interlinked and interdependent. Businesses that balance all three (in my opinion) position themselves for long term sustainable growth and 'legitimacy' from consumers and stakeholders, in a world where companies will have to justify their operations to society at large.

In the UK, we have a growing sector of businesses that share much in common with TerraCycle. We call them 'social businesses' and have built an online market place for them to trade, find workers and attract capital from investors. The site is ClearlySo.com. We're not Upcyclers but we are here to help businesses that do!

Simon Evill

Why frame the options as reduce versus reuse or recycling? We need to do all of these. I believe we need to do all we can to reduce waste/surplus in manufacturing (where 90% of waste occurs) AND help the consumer close the loop in their home - through reuse, composting and home recycling.

Mailing back to a 3rd party is an extra step most consumers won't take.

What % of total post-consumer waste packaging is TerraCycle collecting, versus the total waste out there?

I looked at the Strauss Dairy website and it seems their milk comes in plastic bottles that are discarded when empty.

Look to the Oberwies Dairy in the Chicago area where milk still comes in reusable glass bottles and home delivery from Milkmen (now milk persons) has never been discontinued.

http://www.oberweisdairy.com

I read the article on individual coffee packets and see some possible light at the end of this tunnel in that some value that is connected to these little packets is missing somewhere.
Consumers are willing to reuse or recycle just about anything, they just want to be informed about how to go about it. In this case, if brewed coffee grounds have a good purpose and the consumers know about it they will put them to use.
If consumers are informed of the value in the materials as something they can use for other purposes they will use them. In the case of the coffee brewers, if the aluminum foil attached to the plastic has a use as a teaching aid or a coaster, or a place to rest a hot glue gun it becomes a tool. People used to reuse nearly every packaging item because as a container they were very valuable. As toss-aways packaging is looked at as not valuable and even in some cases a liability. I believe with a little innovation and creativeness outside the box or the bag we can put value back into packaging and put packaging and its reuse or recycle as a light at the end of the tunnel, not some kind of problem to be dealt with.

Hi Tom:
I met your business partner last week, Robin, while visiting a contract packager in NJ...very interesting guy. We had a great talk about this reuse issue and he promptly backed it up by giving me and my sales rep some TerraCycle planters/soil to take home (in the recycled pulp "muffin" tray)...pretty cool, but note to self: not TSA friendly at the airport. They confiscated it.........bummer.
For the record, I think the government should provide incentives for companies that render "non-recyclable" materials recyclable. A tax-imposition is probably more realistic and short term, but there is a steep learning curve facing many politicians on sustainable packaging. A lot of misinformed legislators out there (Robin and I discusssed this also) . It is one of our objectives to make them aware of this site (GreenerPackage) and educate them.
Anyway, keep up the great thought leadership and we at GP and Packaging World look forward to tracking your "take-it-back" programs. This is terrific.

Tom,

It is great that you are now participating by providing insight into these issues that you are leading the charge on. You are definitely a modern day waste innovator and I look up to all that you have done with Terracycle.

I believe that in order to fully comprehend alternatives to this packaging solution it is important to investigate why single cup delivery is necessary. These single portion delivery approaches solve:
1) freshness
2) waste of coffee if not consumed wholly
3) unnecessary energy use by eliminating need to maintain coffee temperature through the use of the typical hot plate (pointed out as a being the key environmental issue in an LCA performed using SimaPro.

I would suggest that the next approach for these companies to reduce waste is to develop an organic low temperature PLA or other plastic capable of maintaining a seal until exposed to the coffee brewing temperatures. The plastic would then disintegrate to expose the coffee and maybe provide flavor, sucrose, or something else? They could come in a large reusable package and be purchased in a store from a bin based on quantity....like nuts or cereal in Whole Foods. The product could be shipped in larger recycled boxes or reusable 55 gallon drums and stocked by the retailer.

I realize that this will most likely require modifications to the existing coffee makers, but I believe it is a viable solution to the dilemma.

Thanks for all that you have done for sustainability, up-cycling, and the waste industry.

Hi Tom,

I am of those who believe that if the coffee is packed in this hybrid capsule, it has good reasons.
We shouldn't forget that the essence of packaging is to protect the product. I am not sure that a recyclable solution would fit the protection requirements of the coffee.
And even if the material was recyclable, would it be worth collecting it? It is so small that we might use more energy to recycle it than putting it into landfills.

Now, landfills...obviously not a sustainable way to dispose of waste. What about industrial incineration? This is widely used in European countries. It generates heat for homes as well as electricity. 1 ton of waste is equivalent to 300 liters of fuel. Why is incineration not used in the US?

We could argue that the problem comes from consumption habits. These hybrid capsules wouldn't exist if people didn't use them...It has been shown by LCA that "home" made coffee requires much more energy than capsule coffee. Plus the waste of coffee not consummed has way more environmental impacts than the solid waste of a capsule.

To conclude, I am not pro-recyclability, I believe that before changing all of our packages to recyclable material and decrease the protection of the product, we should have a holistic approach and find the right compromise in terms of product protection and environmental impacts.

I think the move that Stonyfield Farm made in their packaging is just the paradigm breaking solution the market needs.

Pre-cycling (the removal of material from the package so it never sees the recycle stream) is a very valuable tool in sustainability. One that many companies are not taking advantage of. Many of the packaging technologies we present to clients are focused on precycled concepts. When considering the amount of energy removed from the life cycle of the product and the pounds of material kept out of the recycle stream altogether, precycling could be one of the best tools companies have at their disposal to take advantage of "low hanging fruit" in their endeavor to introduce more sustainable versions of their current packaging.

What Stonyfield Farm understands is that with injection molded PP, you can control the manufacturing process better yielding a much thinner walled package.

All too often though, in our presentations of some of our concepts, too much concern is placed on injection molded PP due to the published statistics on PP recycling. The problem with this concern is 2 fold:

1. The PP stream is lower because there are significantly more dynamic paradigms of packaging using other materials (HDPE liquid laundry bottles for example) than there are PP package paradigms. That will simply change when more PP package concepts are introduced. PP is just as recycelable as many of these other materials.

2. The other problem is the value placed on recycling. To date, even though the data suggests improvement in recycling in the U.S., overall the percentage is still way too low on plastics that are actually making it into the recycle stream.

So it would seem to me that precycling should be an area of focus for introduction of new sustainable package concepts.

Tom,
This is a common question, but it's not possible to have an answer for it.
Is recyclable or likely-to-be-recycled material better than non-recyclable? In most cases. Is lesser packaging material better than more? In most cases. Is recyclable better than less packaging? It's impossible to say without full knowledge of the context and doing the necessary (life cycle) assessment to put all the pieces together. You will get a different answer in different contexts and to try to make a categorical rule will likely lead you astray as often as it will help.

In fact, in some cases it may be heavier weight packaging or packaging of a less recycled material that is the best option because we must also consider how well it protects the product, the impacts of which producing can be tens to thousands fold greater than for the packaging. Packaging, as we all know, is a complicated system that serves a very important function. We need to consider all aspects of that system and also the system that it is protecting to understand what will really be a "green" packaging in that context. Stoneyfield's container may be very good for their yoghurt, but I wouldn't suggest they try to sell eggs in it and making it more recyclable or lighter weight won't make it a greener eggs packaging.

That being said, in Stoneyfield's case they made sure the necessary homework was done (by some former colleagues of mine at Michigan's CSS, http://tinyurl.com/cxwzaj) to understand all the trade-offs involved in choosing among the available materials and feasible design options. In this case, it pointed toward a container with a less-likely-to-be recycled (a more accurate term for PP than unrecyclable) material. The analysis also suggested that they would help the environment (and their bottom line) by not including a plastic overcap above the foil tops on the 8oz containers, which many others in the industry have followed. However, the cap is still there on the 32oz size, even though the impacts of just producing the packaging would be much less if they got rid of it. The reason being that at that size, it's necessary to protect the product, which if wasted has much more impact on the environment than the jug.

There are certainly many case studies that would indicate a different type of conclusion. If we turn these case study results into rules-of-thumb and stop thinking critically about the systems in question, we may be right in some cases, but will be wrong in many others.

Jon Dettling, www.ecointesys.com

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