Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Even More!

 

As many of you read in our first blog, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, one of our New Year’s resolution is to reduce our consumption of products sold in plastic and recycle as much plastic as possible. Needless to say, it has been an interesting and sometimes frustrating journey.  Try an experiment yourself: look in your shopping cart before you check out and see how many things are packaged in plastic! We have found that there are some alternatives to buy in glass, cardboard, or cans, but there are other things that are only sold in plastic.  It has been hard giving up purchasing some of these items but we are holding strong on our commitment.  We have taken our own containers to some places where they will allow us to take home the food without the plastic. However, we are not perfect.  See Part 2 of our blog (out later this week) for more information and suggestions. It has been amazing as well as gratifying to see that we are making a difference, no matter how small it might be.

Some of you also may remember that as part of Wellspring’s personal commitment to the environment, we have teamed up with Terracycle to help our community recycle a little more plastic. When you enter Wellspring, you will find 4 trashcans that are labeled to identify each specific program.  Here is what we can recycle so far:

Energy Bar Wrapper Recycling Program: Clif Bar®

Program accepted waste: Foil-lined energy bar wrappers; foil-lined granola bar wrappers; foil-lined meal replacement bar wrappers; foil-lined protein bar wrappers; foil-lined diet bar wrappers; Clif Bar & Co. wrappers from Clif Bars, Luna Bars, MOJO, Builders, Crunch, Clif Kid Z-Bar, Kits Organic, Clif Kid Z-Fruit, Shot Bloks, Shot Gels, and Shot Drinks; pouches from Clif Organic Energy Food.

Note: This program recycles any brand that meets these requirements!

Tom’s of Maine Natural Care Recycling Program

Program accepted waste: Mouthwash bottles and caps, deodorant containers and caps, toothpaste tubes and caps, soap packaging, floss containers, and toothbrushes.

Note: This program recycles any brand that meets these requirements!

Gillette® Razor Recycling Program

Program accepted waste: All brands of blades and razors (systems and disposable units, and replaceable-blade cartridge units), rigid plastic packaging, and flexible plastic bag packaging.

Note: This program recycles any brand that meets these requirements!