TerraFirma?

A BBC Panorama programme 'Where does my rubbish go?' looked at the activities of the New Jersey-based TerraCycle company (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31036601). TerraCycle claims it is a 'force for good', recycling difficult-to-deal-with, mixed material packaging items such as biscuit/crisp wrappers, plastic toothbrushes and coffee bags. Such types of waste are uniformly rejected by UK council collection services. Many major manufacturing companies pay to carry the TerraCycle logo. The Panorama programme revealed, however, it can be extraordinarily difficult to use TerraCycle's 'free services' in a sustainable way. People, who want to use the service, have to separate out their different types of waste, locate a collection point (using TerraCycle's not always accurate website) and transport the material themselves. Collection points for the different types of waste are generally widely scattered. They can also be miles from where people (even in London) actually live. Fairly obviously, it would make no environmental sense to drive a few crisp packets to a collection point (even if it was operated by local volunteers and one got a 'warm glow' from having done it). The Panorama programme basically asked whether the TerraCycle exercise is altruistic waste disposal innovation or simply an opportunity for signed up companies to 'greenwash'? Perhaps the answer lies in the observation that, TerraCycle processes only a very tiny proportion of difficult-to-deal-with waste packaging? TerraCycle certainly makes money.