Lee Elementary School students turned juice pouches into pencil cases, chip bags to lunch boxes and candy wrappers into backpacks as part of a national initiative that combines fundraising and recycling. Students collected nearly 6,000 pieces of non-recyclable waste, such as bags, wrappers and bottles, and shipped them to TerraCycle, a company that makes new products from lunchroom garbage. TerraCycle turns food packaging destined for the landfill into products for home, school and the office. The company’s tote bags, trash cans, picture frames and more are made from the waste and sold at major retailers like Target, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Home Depot. Schools are paid two cents for each piece of waste, earning Lee Elementary $120. Hundreds of schools across the state participated, collecting 1,261,712 pieces of waste and earning nearly $25,000. Schools can send their lunchroom waste to TerraCycle by printing pre-paid shipping labels from the Web site. For more information, visit www.terracycle.net.