TerraCycle Partners With Casella to Test Recycling Collection Service

Since its beginnings in 2001, Terracycle has continued to evolve as a company with a simple goal to recycle the hard-to-recycle items consumers come across every day.

What first started as a vermicompost company, Terracycle offers several recycling services to make recycling and reuse accessible.

Partnering with Casella Waste to pilot their newest recycling service in Burlington, Vt. Waste360 recently chatted with Shaye DiPasquale, the senior communications associate for Terracycle, to hear more about the company's story from its beginnings to its current projects.

Here is what DiPasquale had to say about these transformative recycling models.

Waste360: What does TerraCycle do?

While the majority of recycling companies tend to concentrate on traditional waste streams like aluminum, paper, or specific types of plastic, TerraCycle has made a name for itself in recycling “the unrecyclable.”

This type of hard-to-recycle waste takes the form of virtually anything from cigarette butts, to plastic snack packaging, to used chewing gum. We refer to these types of waste as “hard-to-recycle” simply because there aren't easy solutions for consumers to find a recycling program for them.

In other words, the types of waste TerraCycle works with are not typically accepted by municipal or curbside blue bin recycling programs.

Waste360: How did TerraCycle start?

Our CEO Tom Szaky got the idea for TerraCycle as a college freshman at Princeton University in 2001.

The original business model was vermicomposting—or converting garbage into worm poop. The worm poop was then packaged in used soda bottles and sold as fertilizer.

To find a larger supply of bottles, Tom created a national collection program, which was the precursor for our current free recycling programs.

While we no longer produce fertilizer, we have moved into finding recycling solutions for some of the world’s toughest garbage problems, proving that everything is technically recyclable and developing solutions for nearly every waste stream you can think of, including drink pouches, used toothbrushes, cigarette butts and even dirty diapers.

Waste360: Can you tell me about the Zero Waste Box program?

TerraCycle developed the Zero Waste Box program as a convenient, at-home recycling solution for difficult-to-recycle waste streams, especially the ones not addressed by our free recycling programs.

Zero Waste Boxes are being used by households, government organizations, schools, and businesses to collect and recycle a number of otherwise unrecyclable waste streams like plastic snack wrappers from breakrooms, centrifuge tubes from labs, and personal protective equipment from factory floors, to name just a few uses.

Waste360: How does the program work?

After purchasing and filling a Zero Waste Box with one of the hundreds of waste streams accepted through the program, the user simply attaches the included pre-paid shipping label and returns the box to TerraCycle for processing.

Waste360: What items are accepted in these boxes?

There are three different categories of Zero Waste Boxes. Category Separation Boxes solve for an entire, non-brand specific waste stream, such as a box for coffee capsules, a box for all snack and candy wrappers, a box for all shipping materials or a box for all plastic packaging (both flexible and rigid).

Room Separation Boxes allow all the types of trash generated in a particular room or space to be collected for recycling in one box, such as the Bathroom Separation Zero Waste Box, the Kitchen Separation Zero Waste Box, or the Garage Separation Zero Waste Box.

The All-In-One Zero Waste Box is the most comprehensive option and accepts almost everything—no separation required.

Overall, Zero Waste Boxes do not accept any biohazardous waste, including biomedical waste, sharps and soiled diapers. 

Wast360: How does TerraCycle manage to recycle all of the accepted hard-to-recycle items?

TerraCycle utilizes third party subcontracting facilities for processing and conversion work and a wide network of end-users who incorporate the recycled material into their final products.

These processing facilities and end-users are localized to the market where the waste was originally collected whenever it is possible. 

Once received at the processing facilities, the collected waste is melted down, pelletized and shaped into hard plastic that can be integrated into new products, like turning ocean plastic into shampoo bottles or toothpaste tubes into playgrounds. 

Waste360: Can you tell me about the subscription-based pickup program with TerraCycle?

TerraCycle has recently launched two subscription-based pickup programs: TerraCycle Home and the TerraCycle Pouch by Casella.

Through TerraCycle Home, consumers can subscribe to a monthly or twice-monthly pickup service for over 20 different waste streams local recycling services won't accept.

TerraCycle Home then delivers customers Zero Waste Bags and an outdoor receptacle for easy recycling.

On each Zero Waste Bag, there is a checklist of all the different waste streams that can be collected through the service. Customers can select and check off one waste stream per bag and then fill the bag with that specific waste stream (i.e. cosmetics packaging, pet food packaging, or water filters)

Once a Zero Waste Bag is full, the customer can schedule a bag pickup by scanning a QR code or logging into their TerraCycle Home accounts.

Customers can put the Zero Waste Bags in their TerraCycle Home receptacles on the scheduled day of service, and TerraCycle will pick it up from their doorsteps for processing.

The TerraCycle Pouch by Casella program has a very similar model.

Casella Waste Systems is a regional solid waste, recycling and resource management services company based in Rutland, VT.

Casella has partnered with TerraCycle to offer additional services to residents in Burlington, VT for materials that are not recyclable curbside.

Customers subscribe to the TerraCycle Pouch by Casella website and choose a plan that works for them.

Casella Waste then delivers TerraCycle Pouches; once the pouches are full, customers request a pickup by scanning the pouch’s QR code or logging into their account.

Customers then place their full pouches on their doorstep, where Casella will pick them up and TerraCycle will recycle the materials inside.

For both programs, some of the collected trash will specifically be recycled into benches and other items to be donated to public parks in the respective communities. 

Waste360: Where is this program currently available in the United States?

TerraCycle Home is currently available in New Jersey (Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Morris, Somerset and Union counties) and eastern Pennsylvania (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties).

The TerraCycle Pouch by Casella program is currently available in Burlington, Vermont. 

Waste360: Does this specific program work similarly to the mail-in program?

Our mail-in, free recycling programs are free to join because they are funded by brands, manufacturers, and retailers, while TerraCycle Home and the TerraCycle Pouch by Casella are paid services.

Instead of shipping the waste back to TerraCycle using a prepaid shipping label as is done through the free recycling programs, TerraCycle Home and the TerraCycle Pouch by Casella offer a convenient doorstep pickup for the hard-to-recycle waste.

With the individual free recycling programs, there is a specific waste stream that can be collected per program, whereas TerraCycle Home and the TerraCycle Pouch by Casella programs give customers the option to pick one of 20 waste streams to recycle in each Zero Waste Bag or TerraCycle Pouch, respectively.

Waste360: Are there any goals to expand this service?

Yes, TerraCycle Home is looking to expand the service across the country.

The TerraCycle Pouch by Casella program is in a pilot phase, with the hopes to bring the service to other areas of Casella’s operating footprint in the future.