I haven’t set foot in a Target in a long time, but during one of my last trips down those megastore aisles, I noticed a shoulder-sling bag made from 100 percent recycled materials – in this case, some old Capri Sun juice containers. My first thought was, “Great, another great D.I.Y idea co-opted and crapped on by the masses…these were probably made in China.” But whatever.
TerraCycle is actually a gardening oriented business that focuses on worm compost, with meager beginnings filling dumpstered pop bottles with the worm-enriched fertilizers they were making.
And those used Capri Sun pouch shoulder bags, as well ones made with Oreo and Cliff bar wrappers, are made using customer donations. They’ve expanded their donation intake to include cell phones, corks and yogurt containers, and the company plans on making as many commodities from recycled goods as possible. They’re trying to follow the triple bottom line method of business and offer the following guidelines in their mission statement: “fundamentally we cannot rely on the consumer to pick up the tab for the environmental and social bottom lines…these thoughts are pure musings on the potential of eco-capitalism in manufacturing. We must make generalizations to grasp macro thoughts. In other words, welcome to the rabbit hole.”
So, you can walk into a Target, buy some cookies, juice and a handbag made from recycled plastic bags. As you’re paying, the cashier will drop your purchases into another bag will a large, red bullseye logo on it. Leaving the football field-sized parking lot, you’ll turn onto a four lane blacktop and drive home. Once there, you’ll unpack the days shopping, quickly eat a bag of Oreo’s, swig a case of Capri Sun, and tie up the discarded wrappers into a plastic Target bag. Then you can stuff that into a cardboard box, address it to TerraCycle, and badda bing…hakuna mattata. The circle of consumption in complete, all is right in the world and the lions sleep tonight.
Well, it’s all a bit meta for me, but ultimately, it’s quite cool.
I’m pretty happy that there are gems of benevolent, thoughtful capitalism hidden in the shelves of big box stores. Hopefully, the next time I’m caught in a flourescent-lit shopping hell I’ll find another one.
TerraCycle: A new way to think about trash | City Renewed.
Please read TerraCycle’s manifesto. It’s informative and quite good.
NBNT writings of 3BL: Itsy Bitsy Business
1 Comment
April 30, 2009 at 7:25 am
Target along with many other big box stores claim to carry many of the TerraCycle products but they are in limited supply. The products depend on donations hence can only be produced depending on supply of donated materials. You can join the juice pouch or cookie wrapper brigades by going to TerraCycle. Lets keep the trash coming and useful items in stock for all to enjoy.