 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Environmental technology |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Headquarters | Lake Forest, Illinois |
| Website | ecycler.com |
ecycler is an environmental technology company and brand that provides a marketplace for discarders and collectors of recyclable waste in areas where no organized pickup is available.
The company's web site can also be used by households, institutions or businesses that do have curb-side recycling but want to have their recyclables picked up when and where they desire. [1] If a collector of recyclables is not yet available in an area, the people discarding recyclables may post their materials on a bulletin board-an area ecycler calls the "recycling exchange." New or existing collectors may view materials listed on the exchange and then contact the discarder for a pick-up.
The site is driven by individual collectors who establish their own ecycler recycling programs. [2] Collectors can create and market their own ecycler recycling programs by downloading posters generated by ecycler.com and then posting them in public places. Ecycler provides personalized business cards to collectors making them "independent collectors" and allowing them to share in the use of the ecycler name in setting up their recycling programs in their community.
Ecycler encourages people to discard their recyclables for free; however, discarders can request a portion of the proceeds from the collector. Collectors can take the recyclables to a redemption center or reverse vending machine and make either 100% profit or they can make a 60% profit by giving 40% to the person from whom they collected the recyclables. It is up to the person discarding the recyclables whether or not they want to simply give them away or earn some money themselves. [1]
According to filterforgood.com, people who want to sign up as either discarders or collectors should know whether they live in a bottle-bill state. A “bottle bill,” also known as a “container deposit law" requires a minimum refundable deposit on beer, soft drink and other beverage containers in order to ensure a high rate of recycling or reuse. [3]
The deposit-refund system was created by the beverage industry as a way to guarantee the return of their glass bottles to be washed, refilled and resold, filterforgood.com explains.
According to treehugger.com, the environmental benefit of ecycler might be reduced if it creates additional vehicle traffic: "While this is a great system to help get recyclables to recycling facilities in areas where there isn't curbside pickup provided by the city, we are still curious about the impact of having people most likely driving around in cars and pickup trucks collecting the recyclables and driving to centers to turn them in." [1] Discarders can track the carbon credits on the site by listing how many recyclables they have given away through ecycler.com and on their own. Ecycler also allows collectors and discarders to rate their experiences with one another.
For non-traditional materials (tennis balls, wine bottle corks, eyeglasses, et al.) ecycler offers the opportunity to recycle these items that are not usually recyclable via local recycling centers.
The company was founded in February 2009 and launched to the public at TechCrunch50 2009.[ citation needed ] Although, the company is based in Lake Forest, Illinois, ecycler went live with its Canada specific site in April 2010.
Ecycler ceased its US and Canada operations on 31 Dec 13.
Ecycler is hosted on a cloud computing platform developed on the LAMP stack.
Ecycler released an iOS application titled iCanRecycle in August 2011.
An Aluminum can is a single-use container for packaging made primarily of aluminum. It is commonly used for food and beverages such as milk and soup but also for products such as oil, chemicals, and other liquids. Global production is 180 billion annually and constitutes the largest single use of aluminum globally.
A reusable bottle is a bottle that can be reused, as in the case as by the original bottler or by end-use consumers. Reusable bottles have grown in popularity by consumers for both environmental and health safety reasons. Reusable bottles are one example of reusable packaging.
The Oregon Bottle Bill is a container-deposit legislation enacted in the U.S. state of Oregon in 1971 that went into effect in October 1972. It was the first such legislation in the United States. It was amended in 2007 and 2011. It requires applicable beverages in applicable sizes in glass, plastic or metal cans or bottles sold in Oregon to be returnable with a minimum refund value. The refund value was initially 5 cents until April 1, 2017, when it increased to 10 cents. The Oregon Legislature has given the Oregon Liquor Control Commission the authority to administer and enforce the Bottle Bill. For COVID-19 related reasons, from March 15, 2020 until July 5, 2021 enforcement was suspended a few times and retailers were allowed to limit acceptance hours. Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC), a private cooperative owned by retailers and beverage distributors, administers the collection and transportation of returned containers and keeps all the unclaimed deposits. Materials from returned containers are sold by the OBRC and proceeds are handed out to beverage distributors. In 2022, the bottle bill was expanded to include canned wine, which will become eligible for redemption on July 1, 2025.
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The word litter can also be used as a verb: to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground, and leave them there indefinitely or for other people to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them correctly.
Container-deposit legislation is any law that requires the collection of a monetary deposit on beverage containers at the point of sale and/or the payment of refund value to the consumers. When the container is returned to an authorized redemption center, or retailer in some jurisdictions, the deposit is partly or fully refunded to the redeemer. It is a deposit-refund system.
A reverse vending machine (RVM) is a machine that allows a person to insert a used or empty glass bottle, plastic bottle, or aluminum can in exchange for a reward. After inserting the recyclable item, it is then compacted, sorted, and analyzed according to the number of ounces, materials, and brand using the universal product code on the bottle or can. Once the item has been scanned and approved, it is then crushed and sorted into the proper storage space for the classified material. Upon processing the item, the machine rewards people with incentives, such as cash or coupons.
A recycling bin is a container used to hold recyclables before they are taken to recycling centers. Recycling bins exist in various sizes for use inside and outside of homes, offices, and large public facilities. Separate containers are often provided for paper, tin or aluminum cans, and glass or plastic bottles, with some bins allowing for commingled, mixed recycling of various materials.
Glass recycling is the processing of waste glass into usable products. Glass that is crushed or imploded and ready to be remelted is called cullet. There are two types of cullet: internal and external. Internal cullet is composed of defective products detected and rejected by a quality control process during the industrial process of glass manufacturing, transition phases of product changes and production offcuts. External cullet is waste glass that has been collected or reprocessed with the purpose of recycling. External cullet is classified as waste. The word "cullet", when used in the context of end-of-waste, will always refer to external cullet.
California Redemption Value (CRV), also known as California Refund Value, is a regulatory fee paid on recyclable beverage containers in the U.S. state of California. The fee was established by the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act of 1986 and further extended to additional beverage types in California State Senate Bill No. 1013, signed into law on September 28, 2022 and taking effect on January 1, 2024; since 2010 the program has been administered by the Cal/EPA California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle).
This article outlines the position and trends of recycling in Canada. Since the 1980s, most mid to large municipalities in most provinces have recycling programs, relying on curbside collection with either bins, boxes, or bags. These systems are not standardized, and the specific process differs for each province. Certain provinces have container-deposit systems in place for bottles, cans, and other beverage containers.
There is no national law in the United States that mandates recycling. State and local governments often introduce their own recycling requirements. In 2014, the recycling/composting rate for municipal solid waste in the U.S. was 34.6%. A number of U.S. states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont have passed laws that establish deposits or refund values on beverage containers while other jurisdictions rely on recycling goals or landfill bans of recyclable materials.
Recycling in the Netherlands is under the responsibility of local authorities. Different localities implement different systems. Municipalities all over the country publish a calendar, on a yearly basis, of the pickup dates and the addresses of the waste separation and recycling stations.
In 2015, 43.5% of the United Kingdom's municipal waste was recycled, composted or broken down by anaerobic digestion. The majority of recycling undertaken in the United Kingdom is done by statutory authorities, although commercial and industrial waste is chiefly processed by private companies. Local Authorities are responsible for the collection of municipal waste and operate contracts which are usually kerbside collection schemes. The Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 required local authorities in England to provide every household with a separate collection of at least two types of recyclable materials by 2010. Recycling policy is devolved to the administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales who set their own targets, but all statistics are reported to Eurostat.
The Tennessee Bottle Bill is citizen-supported container-deposit recycling legislation, which if enacted will place a 5-cent deposit on beverage containers sold in Tennessee. The bill applies to containers made of aluminum/bimetal, glass or any plastic, containing soft drinks, beer/malt beverages, carbonated or non-carbonated waters, plain or flavored waters, energy drinks, juices, iced teas or iced coffees. Milk/dairy, nutritional drinks and wine and spirits are not included in the program.
There are ten U.S. states with container deposit legislation, popularly called "bottle bills" after the Oregon Bottle Bill, the first such legislation passed.
The Ontario Deposit Return Program (ODRP), also simply known as Bag it Back, is a regulation of the province of Ontario, Canada. Its purpose is to divert recyclable materials from landfill or low-quality recycling uses by charging a fee for each alcoholic beverage container sold in the province, and processing the material for re-use or other recycling activities once the containers are returned for a refund of the deposit fee. Customers forfeit the deposit fee if the container is not returned.
Solid waste policy in the United States is aimed at developing and implementing proper mechanisms to effectively manage solid waste. For solid waste policy to be effective, inputs should come from stakeholders, including citizens, businesses, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, universities, and other research organizations. These inputs form the basis of policy frameworks that influence solid waste management decisions. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates household, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial solid and hazardous wastes under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Effective solid waste management is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, regional, and local entities. Thus, the RCRA's Solid Waste program section D encourages the environmental departments of each state to develop comprehensive plans to manage nonhazardous industrial and municipal solid waste.
Container deposit legislation (CDL), also known as a container deposit scheme (CDS), is a scheme that was first implemented in South Australia in 1977 and over the decades has spread to the Northern Territory in 2012, New South Wales in 2017, the Australian Capital Territory in June 2018, Queensland in November 2018 and Western Australia in October 2020. Schemes in the remaining states of Tasmania and Victoria are due to commence in 2023.
The history of bottle recycling in the United States has been characterized by four distinct stages. In the first stage, during the late 18th century and early 19th century, most bottles were reused or returned. When bottles were mass-produced, people started throwing them out, which led to the introduction of bottle deposits. However, during the second stage, after World War II, consumption patterns changed and nonreturnable containers became popular, which littered the environment. Some states implemented "bottle bills" that instituted deposits. The beverage-container industry first implemented private recycling programs and then pushed for municipal curbside recycling as an alternative to "bottle bills". More recently, PET bottles have largely replaced other materials. The United States used to be the front-runner when it came to recycling PET, but European countries have since outpaced the US.
A canner participates in canning, the collection and redemption of deposit-marked beverage containers for recycling. Canning is an activity undertaken by individuals or small teams, typically to earn an income. Canning is only possible in nations, states, or municipalities which have enacted container-deposit legislation.