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Walmart Machines Pay for Trash

From Discovery News. Finally--trash justice! These machines PAY YOU to dump, not the other way around--you paying for THEM to dump.

"Recycling machines and reverse vending machines are still fairly new -- recently I wrote about a couple of cool ones arriving at college campuses and other locations around the country. Unlike those, however, the "Store Collection Systems" at Wal-Mart are made by TerraCycle, which runs national waste materials collection programs for schools and nonprofits."

...

"The company makes eco-friendly products, including bags, coolers, and kites from materials like discarded energy bar wrappers and yogurt cups. I'm definitely a TerraCycle fan, first hearing about it back in 2007 when a colleague of mine at a short-lived online magazine interviewed founder Tom Skazy. The magazine is gone, but I still have an electronic copy of the Q&A."

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"Usually the "brigades" that are collecting a certain kind of waste to send to TerraCycle to raise money have to mail in their collections, and TerraCycle will pay for shipping. The new collection system at five Wal-Marts relies on converted 20-foot trailers that can accept 28 different kinds of waste. Starting on October 1, trailers outside of five stores -- four in New Jersey and one in Tullytown, Pennsylvania -- began accepting stuff that usually heads to a landfill, including used pens and spent glue tubes.

According to public radio producer and reporter Alex Goldmark, TerraCycle pays three cents for each piece of trash that goes into the system. Millions of kids have already mailed trash to TerraCycle to raise money for a cause. Now, in New Jersey at least, they have a convenient drop-off location."

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"...if TerraCycle's system does go national, it's nice to know that I could divert plastic waste from landfills without having to ever step foot in the store."

Well, on second thought, hold the trash justice--after going to their website, I see they take YOUR trash and turn it into MORE trash, and the only thing they take that I use is zippy bags.

Instead of parking these things outside WallyWorld, they ought to park one in every elementary school cafeteria.

Posted by Cute at 8:09 PM

Labels: economy, social issues