TerraCycle's Candy Wrapper Brigade collects empty candy wrappers, donates money or charitable gifts to the organizations that send them in, and turns the waste into new items. And … we made it through Hurricane Sandy. My family and I were hunkered down for two and a half days and were without power for one of those days. I feel fortunate. There are still hundreds of thousands of people without power, and not too far from me at the Jersey Shore, as well as other places in the region, people and businesses have lost everything. When the power finally came back on yesterday afternoon, I couldn’t turn off the news. The scenes of the devastation are heartbreaking. As the East Coast starts its cleanup, most of the rest of the country is celebrating Halloween. Our town’s trick-or-treating has been moved to Saturday, and most of the towns around me have postponed it until sometime later in the week. Eventually, those of us with kids will have piles of candy in our homes. When that candy gets eaten, we’ll have piles of candy wrappers.  Did you know that you can recycle many of those wrappers? TerraCycle’s Candy Wrapper Brigade is a recycling program that accepts any brand and any size candy wrappers. What would normally end up as waste in a landfill gets turned into new products like messenger bags, kites and picture frames. This program is a fundraising program for charities, schools and nonprofits. Organizations can sign up, and the wrappers that they send in can earn them 2 cents a wrapper or two TerraCycle points that can be redeemed for charity gifts like providing meals or planting trees. According to the TerraCycle website, participating is easy after an organization has gone through the free signup process. Here is what you need to do.

1. Collect enough approved candy wrappers to fill up a box or bag. The waste does not need to be cleaned or stacked.
2. Download a pre-paid shipping label from the website.
3. Drop the box off at a UPS location.