The Palisadian-Post has partnered with locally founded environmental organization Resilient Palisades to deliver a weekly “green tip” to our readers.
Landfill space is shrinking across the United States, and finding new space takes years due to permits, environmental considerations, and community opposition due to potential air, water, and soil pollution.
Angelenos also incinerate their trash, but the emissions and air pollution are too great for this to be an answer to our growing waste stream. In addition, landfills pose an environmental justice issue since diverse, low-income communities bear the brunt of pollution from wealthy communities.
As international demand for our plastics, textiles, e-waste and other solid waste products decreases, Americans need to re-think their relationship to waste. While we must continue to recycle plastics, glass and aluminum using our blue bins, it also makes sense to take the next step and proactively collect and send waste so it can be turned into other products.
The best way for you and your family (or school, workplace, church, temple, etc.) to divert solid waste from landfills and capture the end-use products to create other products is by ordering one or more TerraCycle boxes.
“TerraCycle is a social enterprise eliminating the idea of waste,” according to the program’s website. “In 21 countries, we tackle the issue from many angles. We have found that nearly everything we touch can be recycled and collect typically hard-to-recycle items through national, first-of-their-kind recycling programs.”
The program has “diverted millions of pounds of valuable resources from landfills all over the world,” the website continued.
Whether it’s used face masks, old razors, pillowcases or even bottle caps, TerraCycle takes trash and builds everything from park benches to plastic bottles and other everyday products.
By going beyond recycling and TerraCycling, we can not only limit landfills but also reduce the need to extract new materials from our planet.
To learn more or to order your box(es), visit zerowasteboxes.terracycle.com.
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