In the last six months, much of what we know about recycling has been turned on its head. For starters, the recycling industry as we know it has nearly collapsed. Municipalities and companies that were getting, say, $100 for a ton of cardboard in October now pay people to ship the stuff away. In this market, the financial incentive for filling your blue bin has all but collapsed. Or has it?
There are a few inventive companies that have stayed ahead of the curve and embraced a cradle-to-cradle sensibility. Instead of creating products that have a single life and then hit the landfill, companies like Begley’s Best, Herman Miller, Kiehl’s, and even the U.S. Postal Service have figured out ways to turn their waste into feedstocks for new products or nutrients for nature.
Recycline’s Preserve toothbrushes are one of our favorite examples of this. For years, the company has been committed to keeping plastic waste from the landfill. They collaborated with Stonyfield Farms to make beautifully-designed ergonomic toothbrushes from yogurt cups and offer postage-paid envelopes in which you can send them back to the company when you’re done. (Simran’s sworn by them for years and been cavity-free for a decade.) From there, the used toothbrushes get reincarnated as plastic lumber for park benches, picnic tables, and more. Recycline has extended its reach beyond your teeth and now offers razors, plates, utensils and many more recycled items.
Now they’ve gone one step further to keep a lot more plastic from the waste stream (Simran is swooning). Polypropylene Plastic—affectionately known as #5—is one of the most common victims of un-recyclability. Used to make yogurt, margarine, cottage cheese and hummus containers, medicine bottles, and straws, #5 is one of the cheapest plastics to make, but is also less efficient—and less profitable—to recycle, so it’s not accepted by most municipal recycling centers. As a result, #5 plastic ends up in landfills, as part of the plastic soup currently circulating in the Pacific Ocean, or is sometimes shipped to Asia and burned for energy.
Still, #5 makes sense for some companies, even those devoted to sustainability. Stonyfield Farms defends their use of #5 on their website: “In using polypropylene (#5) packaging, Stonyfield uses significantly less plastic than we would if we made our cups with HDPE #2 plastic. One of the most beneficial characteristics of #5 plastic is that its structure allows the container to be made of thinner walls, while maintaining the same structural integrity. Our quart containers are over 30% lighter today than they were 10 years ago. By using #5 plastic instead of #2, each year we prevent the manufacture and disposal of over 100 tons of plastic.”
Taking that pledge to sustainability one step further, Stonyfield has partnered with Whole Foods and Organic Valley, in the “Gimme 5” program, spearheaded by Recycline’s Preserve line. Through the magic of Gimme 5, conflicted consumers like Heather (who has been known to toss non-recyclable items in the recycling bin to assuage guilt) can now enjoy their yogurt and drop the #5 tubs off at select Whole Foods locations, (and also the Park Slope Food Coop, New Yorkers) or mail the stuff back to the company where they’ll be shipped directly to Preserve and recycled into kitchen supplies, toothbrushes and recyclable cutlery.
This genius move serves multiple purposes: 1) It keeps plastic waste from clogging our waterways and piling up in landfills; 2) it gives Recycline free inputs for their great products; 3) it keeps Simran’s teeth white and bright; and 4) it keeps Heather from having to culture her own yogurt.
This post was written by Simran Sethi and Heather Mueller.
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