TERRACYCLE NEWS

ELIMINATING THE IDEA OF WASTE®

Willingboro elementary school earns recycled playground

TerraCycle Include USA Colgate ShopRite Playground Contest
WILLINGBORO – A recycled playground is on the way this spring for Hawthorne Park Elementary School.   The school earned the playground, which has an approximate retail value of $50,000 and will be recycled from oral care waste, through the 2016 “Recycled Playground Challenge,” courtesy of Colgate-Palmolive, Shop Rite and recycling company TerraCycle.   The Recycled Playground Challenge included hundreds of schools throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut and Maryland, which participated in the Colgate Oral Care Recycling Program, a free recycling program operated by Colgate and TerraCycle.   Hawthorne Park earned a total of 44,188 playground credits by recycling oral care waste and through online voting. While Catherine Doyle Elementary in Wood Ridge finished first in the contest with 48,355 credits, since that school was unable to accept the playground, it goes to the next finisher, which was Hawthorne Park.   The schools earn one “playground credit” for each unit of empty toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and floss containers sent to TerraCycle for recycling by students and teachers and one credit for every online vote cast for the school. A school or day care must be registered in the Colgate Oral Care Recycling Program in order to participate in the contest.   The Colgate Oral Care Recycling Program is an “ongoing activity, open to any individual, family, school or community group.”     Trenton-based TerraCycle, Inc. was founded in 2001. Its website calls it the “world’s leader” in the collection and repurposing of hard-to-recycle post-consumer waste, ranging from used chip bags to coffee capsules and even cigarette butts.