Is TerraCycle's Recycling Dream a Fantasy? | Getting Warmer
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- TerraCycle promises to make use of plastic garbage that almost no one else wants to touch, like cigarette butts and diapers. But does it actually get recycled? Kal Penn meets the company's founder, Tom Szaky.
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Getting Warmer is Bloomberg's exclusive new show about climate, clean energy and business, anchored by actor and former White House aide Kal Penn.
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Wait. So, Taco Bell doesn't just have collection bins for the sauce packets? It seems like having people print their own shipping label and getting a box to ship a few sauce packets is far worse for the environment then just throwing them in the garbage. This is beyond green washing. Taco Bell basically paid this dude to get permission to lie about how recyclable their packets are.
This is all Green worship bs.
People need to wake up already, FFs.
@@MR-nl8xr being environmentally conscious isn't a bad thing. We all need to do more in that regard. The problem is too many people get sold on the lies of companies like this. Usually because they don't have the time or even the know how to look into the details. They see a label and just hope it's true. You just have to try to get the people in your life to listen. I try not to judge because I'm sure there are things that I should know about or be doing differently that I'm completely blind to simply because I didn't ask the right question or look in the right direction at the right time.
It’s too hard and just ridiculous to set up too many different ways to recycle stuff
@@hpham5589 it's too hard to have a collection bin in the store for the sauce packets people use in the store? Yeah, I agree we need to keep recycling simple. We need to push government at all levels to create the infrastructure we need to accomplish a high recycling rate. We also need to change our behavior as consumers and stop buying so much junk that just gets thrown out. In the interim we also need to be burning more of our garbage to power electric power plants. It's not ideal, but better than a landfill.
Require Taco Bell to have only dispence the giant 🔥 sauce squirters for inside dining. Packets reserved for behind the wheel. That would make a big difference for sure. It all comes down to us all doing our part by reducing, reusing and recycling our stuff. Wear suff out before replacing. Share use of items like foot soak tubs or kiddy pools. Only put one hot sauce packet on your chalupa instead of three.
This guy did not once respond to a question with a meaningful answer. A natural politician.
We have to make big businesses responsible (for example Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestle, etc).
I feel focusing on such small items like sauce packets is a waste of effort and resources (like gas) vs larger problems like industrial and commercial waste, or even larger consumer products that aren't recycled that take up way more space than something like a pen.
Materially speaking yes it makes no sense recycling little things. It does however train you to look at everything you start to throw away and perhaps recycle instead.
START AT THE BEGINNING. LETS START WITH HOW MUCH PACKAGING CAN BE REDUCED.
What they glossed over a bit is that China simply stopped buying plastics in bulk a few years ago - to be shipped over to them and processed etc . . ( they made the business decision it isn't worth it to be in that business ) and so - they effectively made the term "plastic recycling" moot. And ever since the bulk of all plastics that have been collected and put in the blue bins all over the nation have simply ended up in the landfill. I heard some smaller 3rd world nations jumped in that space but not very many and a very small percentage. AND - printing a USPS printing label and putting several or even a whole bunch of plastic condiment packages in a box and then taking it to the post office - having them put it through their infrastructure - put it on a truck - ( time - money - gas - electricity - human potential - fixed costs - depreciation etc. . ) - then ship it to some city somewhere so someone can open the box and "recycle"it - is so absurd that it is comical.
I've been reducing, reusing and religiously recycling for over 3 decades. It has made no difference. So obviously, putting the onus on the consumer is not the solution.
reducing is still a very useful mindset to practive anytime possible though. arguably it can also help with another aspect from consumerism like saving money.
I bought a TerraCycle box recently. In my case, the situation is that I have a very large amount of difficult-to-recycle identical plastic food containers (not because I create a lot week-to-week, I've accumulated it over years, as an alternative to producing a lot more food packaging waste otherwise).
I really wish the company that produced the containers (Huel) would run some kind of recycling program collecting back their packaging in bulk, at least for their main product - given it's identical, you'd think that they'd only really have to develop one process to effectively manage the containers and wouldn't have to deal with high sorting costs. That seems economical, given that sorting costs are where the money sink is and collecting items back in bulk would help on the reverse logistics.
Everything is recyclable. The only question is: How much do you want to spend to do it?
The money at scale is not there yet
Exactly, the issue is that, at the moment, recycling isn't done unless you can make a profit of it, which is generally very difficult with most types of waste. Their model is fundamentally different because breaking-even on the recycling process isn't a factor (or at least, as much of one), the recycling itself is a service. Which also provides an incentive for people and companies to produce less waste that they'd have to pay to be dealt with.
@@merrymachiavelli2041 - Someone has to come up with a killer application to recycle for cheap. This "Use-And-Throw-Away" model is killing our future and our kids' future.
Thank you for this series 10/10
I hope this series gains traction
7:03 -- The lady misspoke about Bic's recycling program. She said ".02%" but really should've said 2%... 370,000 / 18,500,000 = 2%
wait...so how do they recycle it? are they just a recyclable sorting company?
Didn't you see all the artwork he made out of it? They recycle trash into trash sculptures
So Terracycle exists which means lawmakers can make laws requiring companies use them. Before they existed, they couldn't really make that law. Now companies don't have any excuses.
A law mandatory that companies use a certain vendor is not going to happen for a variety of legal and ethical reasons.
Tell me an alternative solution if not Terracycle? My local government have no program to recycle ♻️ tough to recycle products.
Wondering why there isn't a computer vision based sorting system being deployed. Wouldn't that play a huge role in driving the costs down compared to the manual sorting shown in the video?
It will probably come when AI technology catches up to the need.
There are plenty of those commercially available.
Vision isn't the issue, its making a robot that can handle all the different types of waste
it's already being used. but a lot of recycling/trash facilities don't use it due to the cost of buying new machinenary. in the end it boils down to the actual viability of recycling : plastic can only be recycled few times, plastic products that made of multiple type of plastic are harder to recycle (might be impossible economically), the price of recycled plastic.
we should focus on Reduce and Reuse first before recycle. we are focusing on recyle or putting recycling in spotlight is the goal of plastic company in past and it's working
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle....there's a reason why Reduce is 1st step in 3Rs. The manufacturers should Reduce the production of Un-Reusable and Un-Recyclable products.
It is us. Just change the way we consume.
Finally makes sense to me. My recycling/trash people keep rejecting my recycling week after week and I was totally baffled. I see the recycling signs on stuff like Amazon packaging and thought it is meant to be recycled. So basically all they want me to do is put only bottles and cans in the blue bin and trash the rest. This makes no sense to me but hey its less work for me.
Sadly it's because there's no one to buy the recycled waste of anything but bottles in terms of plastic. It's also difficult to sort out certain things like the white and blue Amazon envelopes because they can get trapped in equipment and break it. Materials such as aluminum and steel cans, paper, and cardboard are valuable to companies who buy recycled waste.
Thanks Kal.
the government just has to make all the companies that are in the chain of the production and use of plastic products support the recycling by a tax
just make it hard or expensive to just use non compostable plastics
Bottom line: recycling costs money. Is it worth it to humanity to keep plastic out of our environment? By recycling, reuse, or alternative materials and life choices.
lol, one of the most ridiculous startup ive ever heard, again passes all the responsibilities to the consumer. heres a food for a thought, how about find a way to use less to begin with and madate some strict quota/regulations on the company itself
I'm really interested about this since i've been keeping stuff with their logo and i can send it to them when i have enough. I'm more likely to buy a product if it has a terra cycle logo.
I'll continue slowly collecting stuff they take. I just hope they are still in business when it's time for me to send it. Lol
A lot of people dont gave a printer at home. Do what Amazon does and you can drop it off with out printing it.
You simply need to take the unrecyclable plastic, and grind it up into its powder form and use it in construction of roads and other things like that. Later we can pull that up and recycle it f further if we find better ways to extract usefulness form the materials.
That's a really bad idea, because it contributes to more micro-plastics due to the abrasion of the car tires driving on the (plastic) road.
@@JJs_playground Then dont grind it up to much, and use it in pieces for costruction material.
I agree. It can be melted down with the bitumen used to make asphalt.
Wow, looks like you've cracked global plastics recycling! lol.
@@CB-mn4lf lol
The Taco Bell example makes no sense - so you're supposed to take your open/used messy hot sauce and condiment containers from Taco Bell, back to your office, then bring it in your bag back home so you can collect it and mail it in? Why not have a container collection set up at TB? They showed a midtown Manhattan location where it's mostly office workers and tourists going to eat at this type of place.
So create more cardboard and paper and fuel waste?
Is the juice worth the squeeze? Should I really save my hot sauce packages, maybe even rinse them out, and put them in a cardboard box, and print the label, and put them in the mailbox, and have a truck come pick up the box, and have a person or a machine sort that box, they have the box delivered via truck or train to Terracycle? What a logistics and environmental disaster!
I think anyone who is making type 4,5&6 must find an alternative solution and stop manufacturing it in 2 years. Type 7 must stop in the following 3 months. Type 3 must be regulated and approved for building materials and long lasting products or workable solutions.
Not recyclable doesn't mean useless in regards to PVC
In regards to type 5. Must stop manufacturing it for the simple reason that type 1 & 2 is a viable option. Type 4&6 there's plenty of alternative green options out there. Might cost a bit more but worth it for the long term
Everything is recyclable, especially plastics.
Why is Kumar narrating a bloomberg original?
Unification of packaging materials, using dispensers, instead of individual packages📦, returnable packaging, etc.
Tons of terracycle garbage was found in thirdworld countries landfills. You can all search for it.
BBC documentary on it
first the founder does not answer the question regarding his background then talks about "purposeful solutions", "mission driven", then later the company "...is a platform". All the big words don't address fundamental, core questions regarding quantity, cost of their recycling or much measurable, quantifiable and verifiable facts. Hallmarks of fraud.
the interviewer's facial expression also seems to suggest disbelief.
The recycling problem has already been fixed lol, The Danish model of just paying people to sort an return their own trash works great 😂
Who on earth is going to send waste in the post instead of just chucking it in a bin, or just leave it somewhere like many people do.
Kumar!
Love this. Let save our planet one person and 1 piece of trash at a time 🌎❤
May the Anthropocene epoch make the Permian-Triassic extinction event seem like a minor footnote in the pages of Earths history. Here's to making scenario SSP5-8.5 of the IPCC assessment a reality.
Putting garbage in the post doesn't scale.
Devil's advocate: If you combine waste collection and postal delivery, it saves an extra trip. I wonder how much fuel savings could be gained simply by eliminating redundant travel between services
But where's the recycling in all this? All we saw was a vast warehouse with lots of big boxes, full of sorted plastic toothbrushes. What from there? If Bloomberg is paying for this shady service, it does not have the business savvy we thought it did. Is your video actually disclosing your company's complicity in this sleight-of-hand?
We NEED ALTERNATIVES to PLASTIC products!
7:03 that’s 2%, not 0.02%!
Let's make better materials. Nontoxic and if possible biodegradable and or burnable for electricity
How much time energy and carbon does the fake recycling waste.
"Do you have an engineering or business background?" "I'm an entrepreneur. " ......
Something's not adding up. It seems like a get rich quick scheme or something along those lines
Kevin !
😊😊😊
TerraCycle is a sham :))
start to make plastic bricks to be used in contruction, woul dbe cheaper than clay bricks and more durable than the clay ones, so you would get money from it.
How can you be phenomenally lazy, when everyone is just as lazy?
If it easier and has less steps then throwing it out of my car window I’ll do it
Don't buy crp you don't need
Kumar
I just saw a coke ad, bhrrr. 💩
When it smelles like a scam it is a scam
IS HE CLONE OF Sergey Brin? OR HE HOPE TO LOOK LIKE HIM?
That dude is shady, he sounds like a preacher had a child with a used car salesman
AngryJoe??
😒
This is complete insanity.
TerraCycle, and its CEO, are a joke
Terrible idea.