Eco-friendly crafts are items made out of recycled materials. There are fun and unique craft projects to create and earn money for your school or non-profit organization using recycled products.
TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/> is an eco-friendly company that uses certain types of would-be-waste materials to make new products. Some of the examples of items they create are tote bags that are sewed together and made out of Capri Sun pouches. The great thing is that they receive their waste from schools all across America in a "trash for cash" fundraising program.
TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/> has collected over 50,000 pieces of waste from Milwaukee and kept it out of the landfills. Over $1,000 has been paid to various Milwaukee schools and non-profit organizations. Milwaukee German Immersion School <http://www2.milwaukee.k12.wi.us/german_imm/> has collected the most with over 18,000 pieces of waste that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill.
Here is a recycled craft pattern that Terracycle <http://www.terracycle.net/> has given permission to post. To learn more about the program check out www.TerraCycle.net <http://www.TerraCycle.net> .
As a parent, you'd like your home, community and chidren's schools to be greener. Unfortunately, daily life can get in the way of that. You have limited time and budget in which to make the world around you a more sustainable place.
Every day, Heidi Conley is turning trash into treasures.
"I'm crazy about recycling," said the Shirley resident, as she sat on her front porch, surrounded by unique fabrics and tote bags made out of recycled trash.
"I buy most of my fabrics and other materials at yard sales, except the big buttons --those are new. I made a bunch of pocketbooks out of dungarees last year," she said. But this year, her passion is making colorful, well-constructed tote bags out of drink pouches.
Conley came into the business of recycling trash following a struggling career in home economics.
Conley grew up in Lunenburg and went to Atlantic Union College in South Lancaster to study home economics. But by the time she graduated, Proposition 2-1/2, which limits tax increases in Massachusetts' municipalities to 2.5 percent, had gone into effect, and home-economics classes were among the first educational programs to be eliminated from school budgets.
TerraCycle, CLIF BAR, Kashi, Bear Naked and Odwalla partner to turn granola bar wrappers and bags into eco-friendly products, while earning money for local charities. And because offices and schools produce a tremendous amount of waste, TerraCycle recently partnered with Papermate, Sharpie, 3M, Scotch Tape, Elmer's and more to launch a new program that helps clean up offices and schools nationwide.
TerraCycle is an eco-friendly non-profit organization that recycles would-be rubbish and turns it into a new product. Going green will not only help the Earth, but with this organization it can bring some cash (or coins) to your pocket. Emily Bradford, publicist for TerraCycle explains, “We get the waste items that we use to make our products from individuals and schools all across America in our ‘trash for cash’ fundraising program. We pay any non-profit organization, chosen by the person or team collecting, $0.02 for each piece of waste we receive.”
Shrewsbury - At the end of May 2010, a group of Shrewsbury kids started collecting empty juice pouches and snack bags in an effort to clean up the planet and raise money for Shrewsbury public schools. With the help of the Floral Street School and an eco-friendly company called The Dumpster Divers, they have collected over 2,000 pieces of trash in just over two months. This non-recyclable waste will be sent to another eco-friendly company called Terracycle, which collects all types of trash and uses it to make new creative new products to sell in major stores across the country.
Over the years I have expressed my love of creative recycling. While I do share a large variety of craft projects using trash, no one can certainly make crafts using all of their trash. I discovered a wonderful alternative to crafting with your own trash. You can send it away to be crafted by others.
There is an eco-friendly company called TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/> that uses certain types of would-be-waste materials to make new products. For example, they take Capri Sun pouches or Frito Lay potato chip bags and make tote bags out of them. They get all of the 'trash' to make their products from individuals and schools all across America as part of their 'trash for cash' fundraising program. They pay any non-profit organization, chosen by the person or team sending in the 'trash', $0.02 for each piece of trash they receive. Voila, you can get cash from your trash!
Here is a segment on Back-to-School that has a nice shout-out for TerraCycle and the Capri Sun lunchbox.
Click on the link next to Video and then forward ahead to 4:00. The TerraCycle and Capri Sun mentions are between 4:00-4:40.
Elizabeth Seton High School students are recycling in a new way–recycling the unrecyclable.
Due to the plastics and metals contained in CapriSun and Kool-Aid drink pouches, these products cannot be conventionally recycled. However, a New Jersey-based company, TerraCycle - with the assistance of the all-girl school's ecology club - collects these pouches, which the company repurposes into bags and backpacks.
TerraCycle makes affordable, eco-friendly products from a range of different non-recyclble waste materials. TerraCycle is one of the fastest growing eco-friendly manufacturers in the world!
