A new initiative from Procter & Gamble’s Febreze air freshener and TerraCycle is challenging Canadians across the nation to recycle everything from used air fresheners to Swiffer packaging for $5,000 in prize money, to be donated to the school or charity of the winner’s choice. It's all part of Terracycle’s new Air and Home Care Brigade, the company's latest collection program that aims to divert from landfills all packaging waste associated with home cleaning, enabling consumers to recycle previously non-recyclable material for the first time.
To celebrate the launch of this industry first, the Febreze Fall Frenzy Contest — running through the end of the year — will see which Canadian can collect and ship the most air and home care waste to TerraCycle Canada; the top collector wins $3,000 while two $1,000 prizes will go to two randomly selected participants in the brigade, regardless of how much they ship.
“We're very excited about this,” says a TerraCycle spokesperson. “It's a game-changer for this type of waste, which almost every Canadian will have sitting around his or her home.”
Air and home care packaging waste is, technically, recyclable; however, the high costs of recycling these mixed plastics means the infrastructure isn't readily available in all areas, which leaves most of this material to languish in landfills. This prompted Febreze and TerraCycle to partner and launch the Air and Home Care Brigade, which now enables any individual or organization in Canada (or the UK) to recycle plastic air fresheners, plug-in refills, trigger heads, pumps and caps, as well as flexible home cleaning wipe packs of any brand.
Interested individuals or organizations can sign up to the Air and Home Care Brigade at www.terracycle.ca. Once registered, they collect their air and home care waste in any standard cardboard box, then download a free UPS shipping label and send it off to TerraCycle for proper sorting and recycling. The collected air and home care waste is then recycled into everyday products such as watering cans, garden benches and garbage bins, reducing the need to create these items from virgin plastic.
Aside from the Fall Frenzy contest, participants will automatically be rewarded with two TerraCycle points for the weight of every piece of air and home care waste collected, with each point redeemable for a one-cent contribution to the school, charity or non-profit of the sender's choice.
In October, P&G made a qualified commitment that 90 percent of its packaging will be recyclable by 2020. The commitment came the day before shareholders representing more than $35 billion of investments voted on a shareholder proposal filed by shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, asking the company to phase out unrecyclable packaging, which won significant support (25 percent).
In August, "Human Resources," a reality series following the daily operations and challenges of TerraCycle as it sets out to eliminate waste on a global scale, premiered on Participant Media's Pivot network. To highlight the new series, Participant teamed up with Recycle Across America on a social action campaign called Recycle Right!, focused on transforming recycling and improving the economics and prevalence of sustainable packaging and manufacturing.