It's Hump Day!!  This means the week is halfway over, and that there are only 7 days left of students.  If you read my post from Monday then you know our school had a Green School Celebration that day.  I am totally taking this post to BRAG about how awesome our school is!! First, we are the FIRST and ONLY Green School in our county.  That includes the 17 elementary, 6 middle schools, and 5 high schools.  We were awarded this honor by theMaryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education and means that we use a "holistic, integrated approach to authentic learning that incorporates local environmental issue investigation and professional development with environmental best management practices and community stewardship".  We have been working ALL year to meet this goal, and I think we totally rocked it!!! Every grade level took on a different environmental project, everything from creating safe habitats for local animals to planting local plants, recycling and collecting rain water to use to water the landscaping.  Here's a run-down of what each grade level was responsible for: Kindergarten - Building and maintaining butterfly houses, participating in a TerraCycle Brigade to recycle Entenmann's Little Bite Pouches. 1st Grade - Building and maintaining bird houses, participating in a TerraCycle Brigade to recycle Elmer's glue sticks/bottles and Lunchables containers.

PANAMA CITY BEACH — After joining a worldwide movement to “outsmart waste” last fall, Pier Park is expanding its efforts this summer by launching an area-wide initiative to keep waste out of landfills. Through a partnership with worldwide recycling pioneer TerraCycle, the shopping center signed on to participate in a Cigarette Waste Brigade last year, in which cigarette butts are collected and recycled into plastic pellets for industrial use. Since the brigade’s inception, TerraCycle has collected more than 13.5 million units of cigarette butts from 4,801 collection locations. The effort was so successful at Pier Park that officials have decided to expand to recycling other products through TerraCycle’s various brigade programs. “As part of Simon Property Group, Pier Park is proud to expand its recycling efforts aligned with TerraCycle’s innovative Waste Brigade programs,” said Pier Park General Manager Brent Gardner. “ PierPark is committed to doing its part to create a more sustainable environment for generations to come, and this expanded effort will positively reduce landfill waste, which is a primary environmental goal.” Starting in June, area residents and visitors are encouraged to bring recyclables to Pier Park on the first Saturday of every month between 9 a.m. and noon. Pier Park will be collecting items for 21 different TerraCycle brigades, which will then be packaged and sent to the organization to be recycled. Categories include: iPod and MP3 players; laptop, tablets and E-readers; Brita filter products; cellphones; cheese packaging; cigarette butts; cleaner packaging; Colgate products packaging; dairy tubs; diaper packaging; drink pouches; Elmer’s glue sticks, bottles and caps; energy bar wrappers; Glad food storage products; inkjet and toner cartridges; lunch kit packaging (Lunchables); pairs of shoes; personal care and beauty products; Scotch tape; snack bags; and writing instruments.

The leadership students plan to hold a recycled art contest and work with a company called TerraCycle, which offers programs for collecting and recycling typically discarded items such as chip bags, Lunchables trays and Elmer’s glue bottles.

Tara Lynn-Perez, math teacher at The Henderson International School, is focused on a lot of things. Multiplication tables, long division, fractions – the usual stuff. But what you might not know is Tara’s other passion: to “eliminate the idea of waste.” She’s an avid proponent of a website/program called TerraCycle, an international recycling system for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste, and she’s gotten the kids at her school hooked on the idea!   Here’s how it works… Local programs, called Brigades, send TerraCycle their waste. TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. The Brigades, then, receive points based on the number of items (waste) that they send in (2 points per item). The organization has more than 20 million people collecting waste in over 20 countries, and TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market.

Students send their used supplies to TerraCycle, Inc. instead of to landfills. TerraCycle uses the items to create trash cans, watering cans, park benches, playgrounds, and other products that are sold at stores like Walmart and Whole Foods Market. In turn, every object students collect earns points toward a donation to the school or a charity. Nearby TerraCycle participants include Blair Mill Elementary School, Pennypack Elementary School, and Upper Moreland Intermediate School in Hatboro; Enfield Elementary School in Oreland; Epiphany of Our Lord School in Plymouth Meeting; and Robbins Park Environmental Education Center, Mattison Avenue Elementary School, Shady Grove Elementary School, and Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in Ambler. Art teacher Mary Arbuckle is the coordinator for Blair Mill and Pennypack. “I…thought it would [be] great to encourage all of my students to start collecting juice pouches to send to [TerraCycle],” Arbuckle explains via email. The schools have added glue sticks, laptops, computer mice, cell phones, candy wrappers, Lunchables, chip bags, energy bars, old shoes, and more to their collections. The approximately 750 children from Blair Mill and Pennypack are very involved in the TerraCycle process. Teachers, staff, and children collect items at home and at school, and students “sort items to be shipped to [TerraCycle]….They are also using their imaginations and [coming] up with their own ideas for reusing items instead of throwing items away,” Arbuckle says.

Would you believe discarded Ziploc bags and juice pouches could be worth more than $3,000? Students at a Burlington County elementary school believe it now, thanks to one woman's extraordinary recycling efforts and generosity. On Thursday night, the Burlington County Education Association and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection honored retiree LuAnn Doyle for her contribution to both the school and the environment. From Feb. 2011 until late May of this year, Doyle collected waste from school meals during lunch hours at Hawthorne Park Elementary School in Willingboro, N.J. She recycled the items and gave the money made from it back to the school. All told, she saved more than 160,000 items from the landfill and raised $3,274.15. Here's the breakdown of what she collected: 29,145 juice pouches

TerraCycling began as a process that turns worn waste products and packages into reused containers using fertilizer, worms, and compostation. In 2007, TerraCycle changed their business plan slightly. They began producing pouches, bags, and accessories made from up-cycled drink pouches and candy wrappers. Larger items that were non-recyclable were also up-cycled and used to create flowerpots, plastic lumber, pavers, benches, and garbage pails. The goal of TerraCycle is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that would normally be sent to a landfill. Right now, the company makes affordable, eco-friendly products from a wide range of different non-recyclable waste matters. A TerrraCycling program was established in Berlin in 2010 as an effort to promote the preservation of Maryland’s natural resources. TerraCycle is a company that makes affordable, eco-friendly products from an assortment of different non-recyclable waste matters - turning something useless into something userfull. The company runs a free national collection program that pays non-profit organizations, like Grow Berlin Green, for their waste. Grow Berlin Green is a campaign set to establish the town of Berlin, MD as a model community for participatory environmental protection, conservation, and smart growth policy and practice. Grow Berlin Green educates and engages citizens, schools, businesses, and public officials to achieve measureable impacts on a range of priority issues including: increasing conservation efforts, improving natural resources management, reducing waste, and increasing recycling efforts. “Currently, there are two bins set up at Burbage Park on Williams Street with the other recycling containers,” said Kathy Winte, a leader of the local TerraCycling initiative, “People can deposit their TerraCycle wrappers and then it will be sorted and sent in.” “With this program, closer to 800 pounds of non-recyclable materials have been kept out of the landfill,” continued Winte. TerraCycling applies two different applications to these items. The first is post-consumer, where they process it into paving stones, plastic coolers, flower pots, trash bins, etc. The second is pre-consumer, where they obtain the rolls of packing material from corporations and they make tote bags, pencil cases, notebook covers, and so forth. “We have also partnered with the local schools and some salons, Robin Walters and Headlines. The money that Grow Berlin Green receives gets turned around and goes right back towards sustainable practices,” said Winte. The goal of the campaign is dedicated to encouraging local communities to protect our eco-systems, conserve area resources, and build our towns by using safe and smart practices. The bins are located in the John Howard Burbage Park next to the electric company facility. A list of items, shown below, can be made into up-cycled items when treated properly. The following items can be placed inside the TerraCycling bins for collection: -Drink pouches -Yogurt cups -Lunchable lunch kits -Candy wrappers -Cookie wrappers -Plastic wrappers -Diaper wrappers -Personal product wrappers -Energy bar wrappers -Chip bags -Toasted chip bags -Kashi packaging -Toothpaste tubes -Toothbrushes -Aveeno tubes -Scotch tape dispensers -Corks -Spread containers For more information about TerraCycling or recycling efforts in Berlin, visit the Grow Berlin Green website. Visit the TerraCycle website to learn more about trash that can be TerraCycled.

TerraCycle offers support for stores that sign up for snack bag, candy wrapper recycling. CSP Daily News | March 22, 2012 TRENTON, N.J. -- In an effort to divert more waste from landfills and help businesses engage in their local community, TerraCycle Inc., the leading upcycler and recycler of difficult-to-recycle waste, is encouraging supermarkets and convenience stores to sign up to recycle empty chip bags, candy wrappers and other packaging that accumulates on a daily basis. Each year, millions of these wrappers and bags are needlessly discarded and end up in landfills. The stores can join several programs to collect previously nonrecyclable items and give their customers a way to recycle and earn extra funding for a local charity. TerraCycle collects more than 40 kinds of products and packaging.

January and February may be among the coldest months of the year, but doing fun activities with your families can alleviate some of that winter chill. This Valentine's Day, think about what you love - children, family, friends and this wonderful earth we all live on. It's easy to lose track of that glowing feeling we all walk around with during the Christmas and New Year's holiday once the new year actually arrives. Spend some extra time with your families to keep that feeling intact.

Link to television http://www.nhregister.com/video/?va_id=3000360&pl_id=21367&ref=synd