I may be missing something here, but doesn't this promote consumption of said products as much as, or more than, their recycling? The companies get great PR for being involved in an innovative recycling program, and the general consumer response will be an increase in buying these brands over others in order to "support' the organization. In the end it doesn't seem that much different than Box Tops For Education, which encourages parents to buy high-convenience, excessively-packaged, overpriced and undernourishing cereal to "support" schools for pennies on their consumer dollars.

Still, that 'upcycling' misses the point that we need reusable containers.

After all, how many planters, backpacks, etc. do we really need?

It's true that the recycling 'programs' are a sham 'bought' by the industries that wanted to relieve themselves of any responsibility. But this is no solution. At best, it may serve a low value purpose, but still only temporary ... unless, we expect the new 'derivative' products to be of planned obsolescence in order to keep up with the yogurt containers and cliff bar wrappers.

We need true reuse of durable containers.

We need to reuse the 'function' of the item, not the simplistic reuse of the material: the real value of the item is inherent in it's design-imposed utility function, not merely the material.

Consider glass, the recycling of which required almost as much as the new manufacture from silica. The value of a glass bottle is in it's ability to 'contain' ... that's what makes it a container!

We need a fundamental rethink. These gimmicks serve as a distractions and to delay the big decisions until later.

What a simple yet powerful concept. It may be a small answer to a big problem, but the issue of recycling will be solved "one can at a time" anyway.

The founder of Stonyfield Farm addressed the very issue of reeusable glass containers when he appeared recently on the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC. He made the argument against glass because of the total embodied cost of transporting the glass jars. His argument sounded sensible and indicated that recycling isn't always the greenest option. It sounded like his company has really thought about minimizing the environmental cost of their product.

I'm with Anonymous and Jeremiah.
How can they call it "upcycling" if the backpacks et c. can't themselves be easily recycled, in the localities in which they are sold? The material is only temporarily kept out of the landfill. In the meantime, the school or other organization is advertising for the products, so more are being used.
Reusable is definitely the way to go here. A program like this just prolongs the wasteful single-use container model, while making people feel like they are doing their part for the environment.

Oo, what a great idea! I'm going to save my Stonyfield Farm containers for planters now. I get them free for work, otherwise I wouldn't buy such expensive unrecyclable containers.

Thanks for the great article Lloyd. Just to Clarify:

The programs collect all brands not just the sponsors brands, therefore schools and other group can collect and get paid for ANY brand not just Stonyfield, Honest Tea et cetera.

The program is much different from the Box Tops program, which has nothing to do with recycling in the first place and if anything these programs promote ORGANIC brand like Stonyfield and Honest Tea, not quote: "high-convenience, excessively-packaged, overpriced and undernourishing cereal."

In fact we promote companies who use less packaging and provide high quality, organic food, so the comparison is very inaccurate.

And to say this upcycling misses point is always not fair. A five year old company doesn't have the power to make whole world start using reusable containers. What we are doing is simply offsetting as much as we can in the mean time. So while comments about the need for more reusable containers are very true, it has little to do with our effort to collect containers that already exist.

We collected and reused almost 2 million soda bottles last year and are on course to collect and reused (directly mind you) 15 millions non-recyclable drink pouches to make reusable shopping and tote bags.

So please calling this a "gimmick" is blindly passing judgment on something you do not fully understand. TerraCycle did not create the containers and can't stop companies 100x's of times our size from doing so, but at least we are doing something to help stop the terrible loss of resources, unlike most companies.

Also I think the 5000 schools and non-profits who earn a little extra money and students and communities excited about recycling would highly disagree with your false judgement of our "gimmick"

Thanks again Lloyd, just want to make sure people's opinions don't get mixed up with the facts.