P&G takes previously non-recyclable plastic away from landfill

The Air and Home Care Brigade initiative is a free recycling fundraising scheme which allows UK individuals or organisations to recycle plastic air fresheners and plug-in refills, air and home care product trigger heads, pumps and caps, and flexible home cleaning wipe packs of any brand.

Air and homecare products and packaging are technically recyclable, but owing to the high cost of recycling mixed plastics, the infrastructure to recycle such material isn’t available across the UK and it often ends up in landfill.

Participants interested in the scheme can collect any of the above products and freepost it back to TerraCycle, which will reward two ‘TerraCycle points’ for every piece of air and homecare waste sent in – redeemable for a 1p contribution to the school, charity or non-profit of the sender’s choice.

The collected air and homecare waste is recycled into everyday products such as watering cans, garden benches and waste bins, reducing the need to create new virgin-plastic materials.

P&G projects

TerraCycle and Febreze are also running a six-month competition – the Febreze Freshness Rewards Contest – to celebrate the launch of the Air and Home Care Brigade and help increase awareness, sign-ups and collections.

This isn’t the only P&G project aimed at tackling an over-abundance of waste plastic. Last month, the consumer goods giant teamed up with DuPont for a new initiative to use renewable agricultural biomass in the production of Tide-branded laundry detergent. 

Last year edie reported on P&G’s announcement that 45 of its manufacturing sites worldwide had achieved zero waste to landfill, representing a third of its total production infrastructure. 

And in related plastic recycling news this week, edie reported on a partnership between academics from the University of Bath and Indian researchers in a two-year project to create concrete that uses plastic waste as a partial replacement for sand.

Lois Vallely