Aurora -- Some local schools are collecting trash with the hope of turning it into cash. Leighton School signed up for the Capri Sun Drink Pouch Brigade, a program that pays schools and nonprofit organizations to collect trash that can't be recycled, about a year ago. By participating in the program, students can help take care of the environment by preventing some trash from going to landfills.

Have you heard?  Your school or non-profit organization can earn cash for helping upcycle CAPRI SUN pouches into cool gear.  We did our part to get the message out on Halloween.  Thanks to some items sent by Kraft / Capri Sun we were able to pass out some Capri Sun logo gear along with this message.

* Get trashy - As a parent you probably go through lots of food for your kids that comes in difficult- or impossible-to-recycle packaging, as far as you know. There's a company called TerraCycle that makes products like umbrellas to backpacks, gardening products to recycling bins from recycled trash. TerraCycle works directly with the public, enlisting their help in the form of "brigades," - self-organized groups of people, typically schools - that collect packaging. The newest collected product is Malt-O-Meal, the cereal company that long ago decided to "Bag the Box," skipping the paper box that is typical of cereals; that alone already reducing the packaging by 75 percent.

TerraCycle has a more unusual model. It collects all kinds of hard-to-recycle stuff by mail — drink pouches, candy wrappers, plastic bags, wine corks, toothpaste containers — and then turns them into other things. “In 2011, you’ll see a playground made out of Capri Sun and Honest Kids drink pouches,” said Jo Opot, TerraCycle’s vice president of business development. Consumers who send trash get rewarded with donations to schools or charities, and they get the psychic satisfaction of knowing that something useful was made out of their garbage. You’d think that few people would bother to send their trash in the mail to New Jersey, Terracyle’s home base, but the company says 12 million people have participated, returning 1.8 billion items. The company gets paid by brands whose products it recovers, by manufacturers who buy its materials and by marketers who use its logo on finished products. There’s lots more about how this all works at the TerraCycle website.

With the help of a PTA mom, the school also is going to participate in Terra Cycle, which collects Capri Sun pouches and certain brands of potato-chip bags to be recycled into backpacks, handbags and other carriers.  “We don't have a lot of kids who bring their lunch, but they can bring the items from home and the school will receive money for how much they collect,” Maloney said.

Here are just a few quick facts about what 50 Million juice pouches is equal to: TerraCycle makes this lunch box from waste drink pouch material. Every year, billions of drink pouches end up in dumpsters and landfills across America. Working with a brigade of school volunteers, TerraCycle diverts tons of waste juice pouches annually and donates 2 cents to a charity or non-profit for each pouch collected. The color of each lunch box will vary depending on the type of drink pouch used.

Sponsored by Berol, Sharpie and Paper Mate in partnership with TerraCycle UK, (mentioned in this very magazine of course) the programme teaches pupils about sustainability while helping to raise funds for schools, charities and non-profit organisations nationwide.

For the everyday sweet-eater, Terracycle is your best bet. Founder Tom Szaky made the once-kitschy term “upcycling” into a legitimate process, and since its humble beginnings in 2001, Terracycle has become one of the No. 1 upcycling companies in the U.S. We’ve seen Szaky and his team create usable (and fashionable) materials for the home, garden, school and office from almost-impossible-to-recycle items like Capri Sun pouches, Skittles bags and Starburst wrappers, just to name a few.

Are you looking for creative ways to frow an interest in the environment with your kids? Or a way to help their school in these budget constrained times? Or perhaps a way to clean up your community? The answer to all these may just be sitting right near you: the packaging left over from their Ella's Kitchen food, or over on their desk, the Berol pen that's out of ink.

TerraCycle has a more unusual model. It collects all kinds of hard-to-recycle stuff by mail — drink pouches, candy wrappers, plastic bags, wine corks, toothpaste containers — and then turns them into other things. “In 2011, you’ll see a playground made out Capri Sun and Honest Kids drink pouches,” said Jo Opot, TerraCycle’s vice president of business development. Consumers who send trash get rewarded with donations to schools or charities, and they get the psychic satisfaction of knowing that something useful was made out of their garbage. You’d think that  few people would bother to send their trash in the mail to New Jersey–Terracyle’s home base–but the company says 12 million people have participated, returning 1.8 billion items. The company gets paid by brands whose products it recovers, by manufacturers who buy its materials and by marketers who use its logo on finished products. There’s lots more about this all works at the TerraCycle website, here.