Terracycle
Terracycle at Heaven’s Dew!!!
We accept the following items at our Terracycle location. Please read carefully – the programs change frequently and we update this page when changes are made. Also, some programs take only their brand’s packaging (such as Garnier and Kroger) and some take any packaging (such as Colgate Oral Care), so please take note of those as well!
Read more about living plastic free on our Plastic Free July blog.
Colgate Oral Care Terracycle Program:
Recycle all brands of used or empty toothpaste tubes and caps, toothbrushes, toothpaste cartons, toothbrush outer packaging, and floss containers. Remember, this is sponsored by Colgate but they accept ALL brands of dental care products!
NOTE: We cannot accept electric toothbrushes, battery toothbrushes, and/or their parts through the program.
Gillette Razor Program:
Bring ALL brands of blades and razors (systems and disposable units, and replaceable-blade cartridge units), rigid plastic packaging, and flexible plastic bag packaging. This is one of our favorite types of Terracycle programs because you get to bring ALL brands!
Kroger Our Brands Recycling Program:
Next is the Terracycle program sponsored by Kroger! Through this program, we accept Simple Truth™, Private Selection®, Kroger® Brand, Comforts®, HemisFares®, Luvsome®, Abound® and other Kroger Co brands flexible plastic packaging. Look for these packages when you shop for groceries!
Lundberg Family Farms Program:
How often do you eat rice? Look for Lundberg Family Farms so you can recycle the packaging! We collect all flexible Lundberg Family Farms packaging and food wrappers through this Terracycle program.
Flexible Snack Pouches and Caps
Terracycle Program:
Here’s a program for kid’s snacks! This program accepts all brands of flexible baby food, applesauce, and smoothie pouches and their caps.
Babybel Terracycle Program:
Everybody loves Babybel – they’re so fun! Now they are even more fun because all of the packaging is recyclable! We recycle all Babybel packaging including outer netting, plastic wrap, and wax shells through this program.
Goldtoe Socks
Terracycle Program:
Let’s move to socks next. Terracycle accepts and recycles Goldtoe Brand of used, clean socks! Please make sure they’re clean though – we don’t want the stinky ones!
Herbal Essences Terracycle Program:
Recycle all Proctor & Gamble aerosols and Herbal Essences hair care packaging through this Terracycle program.
Go Macro Terracycle Program:
This one is huge because we sell Go Macro bars in our store – now you can recycle all those Go Macro Macrobar wrappers! When you come in to fill your snack shelf of your pantry, bring back your empty wrappers so they can be turned into soething new!
Stanley Black & Decker
Tool Terracycle Program:
This one is fairly new! We recycle DEWALT®, CRAFTSMAN®, BLACK+DECKER®, STANLEY®, IRWIN®, LENOX®, MAC Tools®, PORTER-CABLE® and Bostitch® branded tools through this Terracycle program.
Taco Bell Sauce Containers Terracycle Program!
Recycle all brands of sauce containers – please be sure to rinse them out first!
TerraCycle impacts Heaven’s Dew & Our Buying Choices:
Why Terracycle
Knowing that waste products can have a new life after we’re finished with them impacts our buying choices. In this country, most of us don’t think about the end of life of the products we purchase. Nearly everything we buy comes in plastic film or containers. Of course it is best to look for items with no plastic packaging. But when it cannot be avoided, think about making a choice based on what could happen to the package.
Our Terracycle Room
When you come to Heaven’s Dew with your bags or buckets full of Terracycle items, enter the door and hang a right just past the front counter Then head straight through to our Terracycle Room.
Can you believe we have an entire room dedicated to Terracycle? That’s how important it is to us! We have bins labeled with the Program names. Separate your items into the bins, pick up a Terracycle cheat sheet, and feel good about helping the environment! While you’re in there, it’s a good time to review all that can be collected at our site.
Terracycle Rewards
Another interesting aspect of Terracycle is their Rewards Program. Terracycle and their brand partners give back to organizations that are enrolled in the Terracycle program. We send boxes full of waste to Terracycle and our program earns points. When enough points are earned, we tell Terracycle to send a check to a charity we choose. In the past we asked Terracycle to send money to the youth group at Oak Grove Mennonite Church in West Liberty, Ohio. Updates will be provided here when new donations are made.
Did you know that it all started with worms?
A little History
In 2001, a freshman at Princeton University, 19-year-old Tom Szaky took several of his friends up to Montreal for fall break. There, he stayed with friends who were feeding kitchen scraps to red worms and using the resulting fertilizer to feed some of their indoor plants. The results were amazing and the idea for TerraCycle was born: to help eliminate the idea of waste by making quality fertilizer from food waste.
2002
Next, Tom emptied his savings accounts, borrowed money from friends and family, and maxed out his credit cards to create a massive worm poop conversion unit.
2006
In 2006, TerraCycle Plant Foods were widely available in the US for the first time. In July of 2006, Tom and TerraCycle were featured on the cover of Inc. Magazine, as the #1 CEO in America under 30 years old as part of their coveted 30 under 30 Awards.
2007
In 2007 TerraCycle grew to nine different product offerings. Meanwhile, TerraCycle’s Bottle Brigade reached 5,000 participating locations. In August 2007, TerraCycle launched the Drink Pouch Brigade, with founding sponsor Honest Tea. On the heels of this success TerraCycle launched the Yogurt Cup Brigade and the Energy Bar Wrapper Brigade, sponsored by Stonyfield Farm and Clif Bar, respectively.
2011
In 2011, TerraCycle opened in Norway, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Over 30 new waste collection programs were launched and total staff grew to over 100 employees. TerraCycle also donated over $3 million to charities in 2011 for the total waste collected.
2017
2017 saw TerraCycle named a winner of the United Nations Momentum for Change Lighthouse Activity award. TerraCycle also received the 2017 Green/Sustainable Business Achievement Award given by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
2019
TerraCycle closed out the decade by unveiling Loop, a circular reuse system delivering the world’s favorite brands to your doorstep in durable, refillable packaging, moving away from disposability and single-use for a less wasteful world. Loop launched in May 2019 in the United States and France, and is still growing. Offering more than 300 items (and counting), Loop provides anything from Tide detergent to Häagen-Dazs ice cream, to Tropicana orange juice to Milka Biscuits — all in reusable packaging. After using the products, customers put the empty containers back in the Loop tote to be picked up by a delivery service, cleaned and refilled, and shipped out to consumers again. In other words, it’s the 21st-century milkman.
2020
An unprecedented global pandemic challenged the world, and TerraCycle kept innovating to eliminate waste. TerraCycle recycled all types of PPE (personal protective equipment) for businesses and homes and drove the launch of the first large-scale PPE recycling initiative for disposable masks. Loop expanded to the continental U.S. and the UK and announced key partnerships to bring reusable packaging to quick-serve restaurants and beauty products.
TerraCycle’s Process in their own words:
Research & Development
Our process starts with our R&D team — in-house scientists and material application specialists who work across our various offices and in collaboration with leading universities — who analyze the materials to determine the right way to process it into new materials. This includes how to break down the waste, separate it into its building blocks, and then recycle those materials for new applications.
Once R&D is complete and a recycling program is live, our Materials team builds an active supply chain for collection, sortation, recycling and end markets. To stay ahead of packaging innovations and changing technology, we leverage a wide network of third party logistics, sorting, and processing capabilities to bring our solutions to life.
Material Recovery Facilities
In each country, shipments of waste are sent to local TerraCycle Material Recovery Facilities (MRF), which are always located in the same country where the waste originates.
When a shipment arrives at a dedicated TerraCycle MRF, it is checked-in, weighed, and visually inspected for contamination.
TerraCycle utilizes a wide variety of sorting technologies such as manual sortation, size separation, sink/float, optical, air density, gravity, magnetic, and more.
The different material types are cleaned, then sent to third-party processing partners that recycle the materials into usable forms.
Recycling
For example, metals and aluminum are shredded and smelted into metal sheeting, ingots, or bar stock. Glass is crushed and melted to be used in new glass bottles (if clear) or brick, cement or concrete applications (if colored). Rubber is generally cryo-milled to freeze, then size-reduced into a powdered state for flooring applications. Organics are composted or used in industrial and commercial fertilizers.
Plastics are the largest category of material we collect through our programs. These materials are size-reduced (made smaller by being shredded or ground), then melted and reformatted into pellets, flakes, or a powder format.
After we ensure the waste is recycled into a raw material, it is sold to manufacturing companies who produce end-products, completing the journey of recycling. These end products may include outdoor furniture and decking, plastic shipping pallets, watering cans, storage containers and bins, tubes for construction applications, flooring tiles, playground surface covers and athletic fields, and much more.
