New Ideas are the solution to old problems.
So my sister was watching the Ellen Show on tv today and she was telling me that they had a clip on how for Earth Day Old Navy clothing stores has this program where you bring in your used flip flops and they send them to a company who converts them to rubber playground pellets which is safer than gravel and wood chips. Apparently the rubber used in flip flops is extraordinarily difficult to recycle. I went to their website to find out more about it and found they are partnered with a company called TerraCycle who are doing the recycling program. So I went to the TerraCycle website here to learn more and was very impressed by what I saw. This company takes items that are very hard to recycle suck as flip flops, drink pouches, candy wrappers, shampoo bottles and others and recycles them into consumer products like plastic fences, lunch bags and others. They have drop off places in various countries including Canada and they will give you $0.02 back per item you bring in or drop off. This is wonderful because it encourages consumers to recycle items that they would normally throw away and not only that, there is the incentive of cash for them. Then this company not only keeps these items from landfills but turns them into new consumer products. It is this form of recycling that we need to see more of; innovative ideas like this are really going to have a massive impact on the planet. This innovative new ideas for a greener future has really been catching on, last year Pepsi ran a campaign calling for ideas and offering start up money to the winners of the contest which were votes on for the public this was called the Pepsi Refresh Project and they awarded over $20,000,000 in grant money. Pepsi is doing it again this year after last year’s massive success with “refreshing” 200 communities, 74 schools, 36 parks and involving over 24,000 volunteers in doing these “refreshments”. It is the programs like this which bring the community together that in my mind are the most successful and the most likely to have a long term positive impact. Ultimately I don’t think that people are going to change their ways very much, yes the will switch to more environmentally minded products over time but apart from that not too much is going to change. It is the creative ideas like these are what is going to make the most change in people’s lives, finding solutions to problems is what is going to be the key thing for the future, not totally changing people’s lifestyles.
May 6th, 2011 at 4:16 am
Props to Old Navy, Pepsi and Terra Cycle for some creative re-purposing. Now I know what to do with my old flip flops!