TerraCycle Turns Kraft Packaging into New Products

Kraft Foods recently announced a new partnership with TerraCycle, an upstart upcycling company that takes packages and materials that are challenging to recycle and turns them into affordable, high quality goods.

The partnership will greatly expand the number of collection sites TerraCycle has available across the country and will help prevent a significant amount of packaging waste from going into landfills.

Kraft will become the first major multi-category corporation to fund the collection of used packaging associated with its products. Several Kraft brands, including Balance bars and South Beach Living bars, Capri Sun beverages, and Chips Ahoy! and Oreo cookies, are now the lead sponsors of TerraCycle Brigades. These nationwide recycling programs make a donation for every piece of packaging a location collects.

"Sustainability is about looking out for future generations. Kraft is proud to partner with TerraCycle, an innovative company who has made it their mission to reduce the impact on landfills and to educate consumers on the importance of recycling," says Jeff Chahley, Senior Director, Sustainability, Kraft Foods.

"TerraCycle’s model of rewarding ’brigade hosts’ is a novel way of collecting packaging waste that would otherwise have been sent to landfills. It’s so cool to see trash turned into merchandise that’s unlike anything else on the market."

Comments

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Will this have any effect on the people who already make tote bags and purses from the juice pouches? Is the current crop of juice bag totes and purses already for sale violating some sort of copyright or trademark law if they don't have an agreement with Kraft? Will it affect those who make and sell them at craft fairs and such?