Eureka Recycling, of Minneapolis, has joined a coalition of national and state public interest groups to release the Make It, Take It Campaign, a collaborative effort to urge consumer goods companies to take responsibility for packaging waste.

The campaign is made up of organizations working on waste and recycling, plastic pollution and resource conservation that have come together to elevate the issue of packaging waste, put public pressure on consumer goods companies, and educate and mobilize citizens to work for sustainable packaging policies.

The campaign’s first target is the Capri Sun juice pouch. Capri Sun pouches are a highly visible example of consumer packaging that cannot be readily reused, recycled or composted. Each year in the United States, an estimated 1.4 billion Capri Sun pouches end up in landfills, are incinerated or discarded as litter. The Make It, Take It Campaign is urging Kraft Foods, the maker of Capri Sun, to make its packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable and take responsibility for post-consumer collection and recycling.

“Companies often design packaging without thinking about what will happen when we’re finished with it,” says Matt Prindiville, co-founder and coordinator of the Make It, Take It Campaign and associate director of Upstream, a national environmental organization based in Athens, Georgia. “Many types of packaging, often plastic or multi-layered, are impossible to recycle or compost. Because of this, the majority of packaging ends up being wasted in incinerators and landfills, or as roadside litter that eventually becomes marine debris that fouls oceans and harms wildlife.”

Eureka Recycling is the only organization in Minnesota that specializes in zero waste. The organization’s services, programs and policy work present solutions to the social, environmental and health problems caused by waste. Eureka Recycling’s mission is to demonstrate that waste is preventable, not inevitable.

For more information, visit EurekaRecycling.org or MakeItTakeIt.net.