Terracycle Offers Free Recycling for K-Cups, Toothpaste; Hard-to-Recycle Stuff
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
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TerraCycle is offering free recycling for hard-to-recycle items like K-cups and toothpaste tubes, promoting sustainability and reducing waste, with the HN community showing general support for the initiative.
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Oct 5, 2025 at 11:25 AM EDT
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The idea seems like an environmental abomination. Anything can be recycled if you are willing to waste resources to do it.
In this case the main waste appears to be indirect through money spent on mail and wages (and some wasted time and opportunity cost). My rule of thumb is that spent money is a good approximation for environmental damage. Ultimately waste is generated by people, the vast majority being indirectly via the services and goods they buy.
I do think that the business sounds quite smart.