In Justin Uyeno’s sophisticated and well-illustrated blog, he has one superb blog post related to corporate social responsibility based on an initiative right here in Vancouver, BC. The post “Vancouver’s toxic waste turned into gold” vividly lays out the plan of the City of Vancouver and TerraCycle Inc. to collect cigarette butts with designated bins and extract “cellulose acetate, which can be used to produce plastic pellets for shipping and plasticized lumber” (para. 1). (See Video)
I agree that there is definitely shared value present in this green initiative in terms of re-conceiving products and markets. Upon closer inspection, we address the social issue of smokers’ bad littering habits, the environmental issue of compiling cigarette butts, and the economic opportunity to transform something wasteful into more usable resources as demonstrated by TerraCycle. While the company may be able to generate profits with this partnership and unique recycling method, the City of Vancouver continues to make green progress which can translate to “increased tourism and standards of living” (para. 2).
Hopefully in no time, instead of asking the question of “what are we gonna do with all these butts?”, we will be asking, “but, what butts?”
https://blogs.ubc.ca/justinuyeno/2013/11/12/vancouvers-toxic-waste-turned-into-gold/