We live in a world where many of the products we use for convenience and food safety – everything from potato chip bags to shampoo bottles – are, surprisingly, not recyclable through normal means.
Potato chip bags, for example, are actually made from a combination of aluminum and plastics, and separating those elements into recyclable materials is not cost-effective just yet. Same thing with those plastic coffee K-cups. Same thing with sauce packets.
Now there are companies who try to recycle these materials, and are working on ways to make the recycling costs drop while finding new uses for the extracted materials – creating everything from sunglass frames to building bricks.
Of course, now I’m thinking about all those packets of Doritos and Fritos I’ve consumed over the years. Heck, there’s probably a landfill with my own dedicated section thanks to my contributions.
So I looked online for anything that would allow me to recycle things like potato chip bags. And in doing so, I came across this website for TerraCycle.
TerraCycle partners with major companies to help recycle various products. You save the wrappers and labels and packaging, and once you have a reasonable amount, you log into a TerraCycle account, print a free shipping label, and send the waste away. TerraCycle and their partners will separate out the recyclable products and materials, which can be used for new products and materials. Easy peasy.
And the list of companies participating in this program actually makes me want to use them, as I now feel that if those products can be recycled, I’m not causing my carbon footprint to stomp all over nature. Head & Shoulders shampoo, for example, has a program with TerraCycle. So does Bimbo Bakeries, the company that produces Freihofer’s and Entemann’s baked goods. Those fifteen sauce packets you get from Taco Bell? TerraCycle can take them.
As for the potato chip and snack bags, currently TerraCycle takes Takis chips, but surely the product line will increase over time.
I don’t know about you … but this intrigues me. And as I said before, I’m more willing to buy products whose packaging I KNOW can be recycled, rather than just hoping that when I toss the container away, somehow the product will evolve away from my sight.
So if this interests you at all … definitely take a look at the TerraCycle website and see what is available in your neck of the woods.
Chuck The Writer 
Good day, Mr. Phelps.
Your (next) mission, Chuck, should you decide to accept it, is to find a safe, efficient and consumer-friendly way to recycle solar panels, since state and federal governments have apparently failed miserably to plan accordingly.
Instead, they’ve simply allowed solar energy companies to run roughshod accross the nation’s farmlands, planting their wares for miles and miles along the way.
With the potentially hazardous panels’ estimated life span being only ~25 years, I must stress that time is of the essence.
As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.
Good luck, Chuck.
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The biggest problem with recycling is the huge amount of packaging that can’t be recycled. Perhaps companies need to be ‘encouraged’ to change that. And I don’t mean “make the packages smaller and higher-priced” like they do here. The other big problem is the amount of backlogging that occurs; we have had recycling taken to the landfill because no company had capacity to process it. Supply outstripping demand.
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