Comments on: Terracycle & Clif Bar: Shades of Green

By: kanishka

kanishka — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:24:44 +0000

terracycle just launched a multistream brigade for individuals, accepts batches of 200 items from any brigade. you have to get on a waitlist, but it is ideal relative to trying to find a nearby participating school

as i think further on terracycle, it is a good thing for someone who is conscious of its downsides. i can name, remember most of the plastic wrapping items that i send to terracycle, and i already am finding myself avoiding some of those products.

By: kanishka

kanishka — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:03:59 +0000

@amy…if you are out there, here are some ways to work with terracycle. i ran into a somewhat similar problem, but in my case, terracycle refuses to provide names of participating schools (out of privacy??). so a creative way to find drop off locations is to google terracycle elementary school and the name of your state.

also, periodically terracycle has contests and announces top collector winners and their locations. if you google for terracycle and beat the heat or terracycle and top collectors, you will find links to result pages. here is an example:

http://www.terracycle.net/en-US/beat-the-heat-collection-contest

also, off the top of my head, i know of these schools:
whitney elementary, indiana
garrison elementary, dover, nh
a group around westford, ma

but anyways, i should start to come up with ways to cut out my need for terracycle. but i want to finish reducing any trash first, followed by recycled plastics.

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 21:01:39 +0000

I tried to recycle at terracycle, but they only take so many people & I have been the wait list for cliff bars with no response. I wish there were other alternatives.

By: Azura Skye

Azura Skye — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:48:19 +0000

I am trying to not buy Nakd bars, they are made here in Wales, UK and are raw and tasty and now they have new bars out with no oats, so they are totally raw and hopefully tasty.
I'm trying to imagine what kind of wrapper they could use.
Paper and foil?
Just paper?
There's something really appealing to me about buying a bar wrapped in paper and string. Hmm, I can probably make these raw bars myself and sell them in paper.
Watch this space ; )

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:15:00 +0000

I found this post because I had been wondering whether Clif wrappers are any more environmentally friendly than other types. The only reason I thought they might be is because they have a kind of matte look and feel to them and thought they might be made from some other product. I’ve noticed that Kettle brand chips also have the same style of matte plastic.

Is it just a style, or could this be a conscious effort to falsely appear more eco-friendly? Both brands appeal to an upscale informed consumer type, and it would make sense. Or maybe it’s just me.

By: CindyW

CindyW — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:22:00 +0000

I just learned to make yogurt at home from my next door neighbor :) Who knew it was this easy? I am one of the worst cooks. My husband cooks for the family, so I am not exaggerating. If I can do it, anyone can. She gave me a starter, kinda like when you make sourdough you need a starter. No more yogurt containers for us. Woohoo!

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:10:00 +0000

I've come up with a solution that's a little better: using thick recycled paper to wrap snack foods in (like granola bars). I don't understand all these plastic foil wrappers on EVERYTHING. Sure it might keep the food fresh a little longer but people eat their food as soon as they get it unless they're preparing for the apocalypse. The paper wrapping could then be recycled instead of having to make kitschy bags that people will only use for maybe a month and throw in the back of the closet. With recycled paper, it's a closed loop, sort of. Even virgin paper would be fine because it's easier to plant a tree than to clean up all the toxic stuff that makes plastic.

Another thing is that if they want food to reach further places and still taste good, why not set up smaller food factories in several places instead of giant mega corps in one place? And stop importing foods from foreign countries! We have enough food here and foreign foods are just an expensive luxury that are not worth the pollution of shipping.

This is my first comment here so I'm a little nervous, heh.

By: organicneedle

organicneedle — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:26:00 +0000

Stonyfield has a similar deal going on with Recycline. Cool products. http://www.recycline.com/

I think it is a step in the right direction. The more plastic that is reused, the less being made ….. in the very long run. It all comes down to enough people saying- I’m going to buy the recycled product over the virgin product. If companies like Recycline and Tetracycle can prove to the big guys that there is money to be made with the used stuff, the greed will motivate a change.

That being said, it really sucks that there isn’t more being done to encourage the recycling of plastic in terms of policy. NYC only recycles #1&2 bottles. You have to take it upon yourself to seek out #5 indie collection centers or mail the stuff in. Let’s face it,for most of us, if it it isn’t convenient- it’s not going to happen.

PS- I think what you are doing is really interesting. Def. got me rethinking a few things.

By: Crunchy Chicken

Crunchy Chicken — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:40:00 +0000

Luna Bar wrapper taken out of garbage after reading post. Luna Bar wrapper put back in garbage after reading comments.

Oh well. Maybe we should all send our wrappers to Beth so she can collect them and send them to Clif on our behalf.

Ooops. Did I just get you into trouble? I can make you a banner :)

By: Tanya

Tanya — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:36:00 +0000

Hi Beth-

I had the same initial reaction as you. Why do we keep putting a band-aid onto our problem instead of addressing the root cause??? Plus the thing that really annoys me is that people aren’t getting the full picture. Sorry, but this sounds like ‘greenwashing’ to me… Luckily, I never buy energy bars or other granola type bars. I try to stick to as much unprocessed food as possible…