Tags: waste

In May of 2019 the recycling giant, Terracycle, launched Loop: a subsidiary with the goal of reducing household waste by ‘bringing back the milkman’. They aren’t just stopping at milk either. Through Loop, subscribers can receive totes of household items ranging from toothpaste and laundry detergent, to salad dressings and Haagen-Dazs ice cream: all packaged in aesthetically-pleasing reusable containers.

A few weeks ago, my iPhone 4s slowly started to malfunction. When the battery started to die within hours of being unplugged, I thought, ‘easy fix… it needs a new battery.’ Then one day I tried to make a call but no one could hear me.

The Department of Education and the Department of Sanitation jointly run the “Organics Collection Program,” which diverts organic materials such as food scraps, soiled paper, yard waste out of the landfill stream and into regional collection centers and the Anaerobic Digest-er Eggs, which extract methane from decomposing organic matter into energy.

Garbage is big business in the Big Apple—nearly 2 billion dollars worth of the city’s budget goes to the Department of Sanitation (DOS); and of that: $300 million is spent just disposing of it elsewhere. Last year this amounted to a cost of $95 per ton, up 28% since 2004, far outpacing inflation.

A bill was recently passed to ban Polystyrene Foam (also known as Styrofoam) in New York City’s food service, joining cities like Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; Seattle; and Amherst, Massachusetts. Most recycling programs, including New York City’s, do not accept Foam Plastics for recycling because the material necessitates separate processing and must be kept exceptionally clean.