Sometimes, despite our best intentions, it's difficult to know how to appropriately recycle the waste items we accumulate at home.
Or, perhaps, finding the appropriate recycling bin in your area is needlessly complicated, putting your good intentions to waste.
In New Jersey, ShopRite and TerraCycle are trying to make it easier for local residents to recycle flexible plastic packaging, such as potato chip bags and candy wrappers.
Kiosks have been placed outside ShopRite stores in Brookdale, Greater Morristown, Livingston, Newark, and Stirling, and TerraCycle will track the use of these recycling bins to determine whether it makes sense to expand the program to other areas.
Perry Blatt, the owner of Village Supermarket, which runs the Greater Morristown ShopRite, told NJBIZ that the initiative will help "to provide our customers an easier way to recycle plastic-film packaging."
"Most flexible plastic, including snack wrappers, chip bags, and food packaging, end up in the trash, but it doesn't have to be that way," said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle. "The ShopRite Flexible Packaging Recycling Kiosks provide residents of Morris and Essex counties more access to recycling these hard-to-recycle single-use plastics, and we hope to see many shoppers take advantage of these free recycling kiosks."
Recycling is important for reusing and repurposing materials rather than continually making new ones — which can come at a huge environmental cost — and it also helps to keep items out of landfills.
In landfills, waste will contribute to the production of the planet-warming gas methane, which is notably much more potent in terms of heat-trapping potential than carbon dioxide.
According to the most recent figures from the Environmental Protection Agency, of the 292.4 million tons of municipal solid waste generated in 2018, 146.1 million tons were sent to landfill sites. Of this total, 18.46% was plastic waste.
These plastics will take decades to break down naturally, if at all, shedding micro- and nanoplastics and leaching harmful petrochemicals in the process. This can contaminate soil and water sources, among other concerns.
ShopRite has been proud to support waste reduction efforts over the last four decades, as Wakefern Chief Communications Officer Karen Meleta told NJBIZ, and this latest program can further increase customers' capability to make smart recycling choices.
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