TerraCycle is My New Best Friend

I can’t recall how I heard about TerraCycle.  It has been on my list of things to check into and I admit I have been putting it off.  The best solution for our trash problem is to refuse and reduce what we buy and use. Obviously we need some products and the best products we buy are ones that can be infinitely recycled.  I’ll talk more about recycling in another post but it’s important to know that plastic is a finite material that can only be downcycled so many times before it is laid to rest in a landfill for all of eternity.  Lots of plastic can’t be recycled at all. Giving up plastic is very difficult. It’s like trying to give up sugar. It is everywhere! As we get close to running out of a product that is not sustainable or packaged in an eco-responsible way, we look for an improvement.  Sometimes we find an improvement that is sustainable, responsibly packaged, and made in a way that is in line with our values. Sometimes we are not quite there in options that will work for us. Remember that it’s all about making small changes that work for you and taking baby steps.  TerraCycle is our friend during this transition and beyond. They specialize in recycling everything, and I do mean everything. They have a program for prepaid boxes for hard to recycle items that are not accepted by your municipal recycling program. They also have paired with manufacturers that care and want to do the right thing by recycling the waste of their products.  I signed up for the FREE recycling program for Burt’s Bees, Garnier, and Tom’s of Maine. You will be put on a waiting list but when it’s your turn, they send you a free shipping label and you send them back their stuff that would have ended up in the landfill. It’s easy and FREE. When I can’t find a suitable sustainable product, this is the next best thing. For now, in our home, we will try to make a point to choose these brands because we want to support manufacturers that care about the environment.  We all need to do our part to produce less waste in the first place but we also need more companies like TerraCycle.