September Green Tip

We have talked about common items that don’t belong in the recycling bin.  One of these is plastic bottle caps.  You are supposed to remove the caps, rinse the bottle, trash the cap, and recycle the bottle.  Why, you may ask?  Because those little caps fall through the cracks and jam up the machinery at the recycling plant.  So what happens to those thousands of bottles that are carelessly tossed into the recycling bin with the caps still attached?  Well, the plant engineers have developed a method of  popping off the caps — the bottle is still recycled, but the caps are trashed. There is one company that has decided to address this problem:  Aveda.  They make beauty products.  (If you go to Aveda.com and read “about Aveda,” you will see that they are a leader in the beauty industry for environmental initiatives — wind power, certified organic ingredients, responsible packaging to name a few.)  In partnership with community schools Aveda has built a recycling program for plastic bottle caps. They currently incorporate caps into their hair-care line and will continue to incorporate recycled caps into future Aveda products.  The schools program has reached capacity, but you can leave caps at the Aveda store at West Farms mall. More details at http://aveda.com/aboutaveda/caps.asp where you can also find a “Cap Collection Guide.”