Learn about how a Princeton graduate, using sustainable thinking, created a comp

Question

Learn about how a Princeton graduate, using sustainable thinking, created a company focused on reducing waste of earth's resources by using materials normally trashed to make new products. Watch the following 5 videos on Terracycle and take notes as you do so. If clicking on the URL does not work for you, you may need to copy the URL and paste it into your browser in order to view the video. When you are finished viewing the videos visit the website http://www.terracycle.net for more information. 1) What is garbage? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjjGQRTTp-4&NR=1 2) TerraCycle products and upcycling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmh-MRLc2zo 3) TerraCycle worm poop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdINEjAXBQ 4) What is TerraCycle? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEND9KG67PM 5) TerraCycle – Get started. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prTnuCMpNy4 In the submission box, answer each of the following questions. Write the question number ONLY followed by your answer. Give thoughtful responses in complete sentences, with correct grammar and spelling. One word answers and short phrases will cause you to lose points. List and provide links to all sources 1. Is there any "waste" in nature? Discuss in detail what happens to "garbage/waste" in nature. (3 pts) 2. Explain with appropriate examples why upcycling is better than recycling? (4 pts) 3. Discuss how Terracycle addresses the social, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability? (4 pts) 4. Identify and describe the first product Terracycle marketed and explain its sustainable features. (2 pts) 5. Name and describe three additional examples of products Terracycle creates from "trash." (2

Explanation / Answer

1. Is there any "waste" in nature? Discuss in detail what happens to "garbage/waste" in nature.

Ans - There are animal waste. Like all waste they get recycled by other animals or plants. Mushrooms grow well on fecal matter because it's moist and full of nutrients. Plants love it because of the nutrients. Dung beetles eat them for the nutrients. The body uses a small percentage of the nutrients they digest and the rest comes out as excretion. Dead plants decomposing are considered waste. They provide food for other living things. In nature, there are no waste products. Unassuming because we need energy, water, air and diverse kinds of resources for all walks of life. The garbage or waste in nature are based on a linear way of thinking; production, consumption, and decomposition. For example, when a tree dies, a process of decomposition begins. This process generates the conditions for new life. When we human beings cut down a tree and saw it into lumber and then make a beautiful piece of furniture from the wood or make paper, we call it manufacture.

2. Explain with appropriate examples why upcycling is better than recycling?

Ans - Up-cycling is a precise technique of recycling, contains orbiting waste material or an undesirable produce into a better-quality product. Up-cycling is a better process rather than recycling simple because goods are in useable form and can be moved back up to the supply chain for resources. Up-cycling, a particular form of recycling, involves turning waste material or an unwanted product into a better-quality product. Up-cycling is more energy efficient as recycling takes waste products, breaks them down, then forms them into something new. When plastic bottles are recycled, for instance, most often they cannot be turned back into containers associated with anything that can be ingested due to the risk of things seeping into the plastic. As a result, these usually become carpets, or toys, or winter fleeces: things that will eventually also become trash. Recycling has simply prolonged the inevitable by stretching out our waste stream and made the lifecycle costs of the material a bit less. In this model, up-cycling becomes dually important. First, the practice reduces the amount of waste that we produce and ultimately goes into the ground for longer than any of us will be around. Secondly, it also reduces the need for new virgin material to be harvested as feedstock for new generations of product. In the case of plastic, this means less oil wells drilled. For metals, less mountains mined. For paper, less trees felled. All around this means less expended energy.

3. Discuss how Terracycle addresses the social, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability?

Ans - Terracycle sidetracks billions of pieces of garbage from our landfills and incinerator both of these options yield added carbon and other greenhouse gases and either up cycles or recycles the waste into new products, which reduces the need for new materials to be mined from our planet. There are two main areas where terracycle brings benefit to our planet. First the environmental benefit of collecting and recycling and up cycling previously non- recycle waste and second the social benefit of approximately two million dollars that has been paid to date by terracycle to charities around the world. Soon terraCycle will be implementing a program that allows you to contribute earnings to specific charitable actions ranging saving rainforest to giving clean water. When it comes to describing sustainability in our world, we need to be concerned about three main areas of influence. There are three interconnected spheres of sustainability that describe the relationships between the environmental, economic, and social aspects of our world. These spheres are a related set of concepts that, when taken together, can form a solid ground from which major decisions and actions can be made. Examples of such decisions could include land use planning, surface water management, building design and construction, and even law making. When the concepts contained in the three spheres of sustainability are applied to real world situations, everybody wins. Natural resources are preserved, the environment is protected, the economy isn't harmed, and the quality of life for our people is improved or maintained.

Environmental Sustainability: Unnecessary disturbances to the environment should be avoided whenever possible. If there is a disturbance, it should be mitigated to the maximum practicable extent. When decisions are made, one part of the discussion should always be the environmental impacts of the proposed outcome or result.

Economic Sustainability: There are several key ideas that make up economic sustainability. For example, governments should look to promoting "smart growth" through no-nonsense land use planning and subsidies or tax breaks for green development. Strong financial support for universities, education programs, and research & development is an important part of economic sustainability as well. In addition to this, an emphasis should also be placed on other areas such as reducing unnecessary spending and cutting red tape.

Social Sustainability: Social sustainability is based on the concept that a decision or project promotes the betterment of society. In general, future generations should have the same or greater quality of life benefits as the current generation do. This concept also encompasses many things such as human rights, environmental law, and public involvement & participation. Failing to put emphasis on the social part of decision or action can result in the slow collapse of the spheres of sustainability.

4. Identify and describe the first product Terracycle marketed and explain its sustainable features.

Ans - The first product was an organic fertilizer also called Worm Poop, said the opportunity to up-cycle trash, or turn it into new products, was vast because most of the items Americans use are not recycled. Some of the country’s largest manufacturers and retailers are rushing to form partnerships with TerraCycle because reducing waste can help bolster their image. Compacted back clay soils are being turned into fertile community beds with the help of many worms and the rich humus from our compost-making efforts. And over the last couple of years we have also been trialing different green manure cover crops to help up-scale the remaining growing area. In the warm, moist environment of the bio-reactor, special worms (tiger worms and composting worms) convert the solids into worm castings on a filter bed while liquids pass through the filter. Further flushing dissolves the worm castings, which also go into a trickle bed below. Bacteria act quickly and compost this liquid, which then passes into a below-ground activated sand filter. A solar pump transfers the emerging cleaned and odorless effluent into a constructed wetland.   

5. Name and describe three additional examples of products Terracycle creates from "trash."

Ans - As we know that Terracycle company selling their first product plant food made from worm droppings in recycled bottles as packaging but teracycle has moved on to become a manufacturer of dozens of products made from trash wrappers, bags, plastics, bottles, containers as well as other products. Terracycle produces bags out of drink pouches, kites and gift bows out of cookie wrappers, butter tubs make planters and plastics are melted down to make other plastic items such as trash cans, kitchenware and bathroom accessories.

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