If you are not buying recycled content, you are not recycling.
Meaning: When we request recycled content, we create a demand for recycled materials to be collected, sorted, sourced and made into new things. The consumer increases the need for recycling by requesting new products made from recycled ones. In a word: Request
Take as much time in disposal as in buying.
Meaning: We all spend a lot of time choosing items. Choices in the grocery store, online and in the mall force us to think about what we would really like or can afford. We also need to take time at the end of a products life to determine the best place for it. Can we reuse it, repurpose it, repair it, recycle it, compost it or give it away? If it goes in the trash bin, it goes to a landfill. It’s your choice. A few extra moments can give things a new life. In a word: Choice
We are making packaging for tomorrow’s world
Meaning: Compostable, bio-based and post-consumer recycled content packaging do not easily fit into today’s waste streams. The infrastructure is not built to support flexible packaging in a circular way to keep it in the economy and avoid a landfill. Very few places allow flexible packaging in curbside bins making recycling or composting these items a challenge. We have faith that the infrastructure will be built to support the circular materials now being made. In a word: Faith
Everything has to go somewhere.
Meaning: “Throw it away.” We all say it. Weekly pick-ups keep waste hidden from view. In reality, there is no such thing as “away”. Everything goes somewhere. We all want that somewhere to increasingly be a recycling center or composter and not a landfill. In a word: Re-Think
No waste
Meaning: “No waste” is the foundational idea of a circular economy. Any by-product of one activity serves as a feedstock for another. In nature, there is no waste. The Earth uses everything in a circular flow. Nature has provided the example. The hope is we can change our systems to follow what nature has done for billions of years. In a word: Biomimicry
Improvements are made in fractions
Meaning: At times, big improvements are made suddenly with large effects. More often than not, they are not. Smaller, incremental improvements made by many people add up to big change. Don’t wait. Do what you can. In a word: Act
Sustainability can be found in requesting recycled content, choosing at disposal, having faith in future infrastructure, re-thinking disposal, following nature’s example and acting!