Ready Pac Redefines ‘Recycling’ through Sustainable Pledges
Reduce, reuse, recycle. As a society, we’ve become accustomed to this motto in our everyday lives. We claim to be environmentally conscious through our efforts to separate recyclable goods from our waste and discard accordingly. We buy local, we think twice before printing, we carpool to work and we advocate consumer goods with tiny triangular arrows. But, could we be doing more? According to many green innovators, these efforts are child’s play compared to several recent initiatives that utilize the “second use” of their materials in most unexpected ways.
In Marin County, Calif., for example, the community has begun processing wasted food from local grocery stores and restaurants to generate electricity. Meanwhile, the brains behind Starbucks have found a way to recycle coffee grounds and baked goods into laundry detergent, and companies like WikiCell developed edible food packaging using fruit and vegetable membranes to encase everything from yogurt to alcoholic beverages.