Benjamin Banneker Elementary School students earned two cents for each juice drink pouch they collected and returned to a company called TerraCycle, which makes products from packaging waste. Last school year, the students collected nearly 3,700 pouches, and the money raised will help teachers purchase instructional materials. More than 70,000 schools and community groups around the country have signed up to help collect more than 100 million used pieces of packaging. The participating organizations collectively earned more than $2 million this year. Interested organizations can learn more at www.terracycle.net.

TerraCycle Makes Strides with Brigades Most outdoor enthusiasts enjoy energy bars, granola, or trail mix before, during and after they hit the trails, streams and lakes. They already stash the leftover wrappers in pockets and backpacks to properly discard the used packaging when they return home. Now some of the industry's most trusted names, CLIF BAR, Kashi, Bear Naked and Odwalla, are rewarding people's efforts by creating a program that turns those wrappers and bags into eco-friendly products, while earning money for local charities. The four leading brands sponsor TerraCycle "Brigades" or free collection programs that contribute two cents to a school or charity for every energy bar wrapper, granola bag, or Kashi packaging returned. In under a year, the programs have helped keep over a million and a half wrappers out of landfills -- TerraCycle collects the used packaging and other hard to recycle material and turns it into new products ranging from shower curtains to backpacks.

  St. Mary’s Episcopal School is collecting empty tubes of beauty products Friday at the Rite Aid on Union Avenue and Saturday at the Rite Aid in Cordova on Germantown Parkway. The recycling effort will help Saint Mary’s raise funds for its needs and also help The Skin Care Foundation. The event is done in partnership with Aveeno and TerraCycle.

Piñon Elmentary School PTO President Gloria Brehm introduced Terracycle to the school last year and the results have been significant.  Three thousand juice pouches have been given to TerraCycle, a company that turns non-recyclable waste into eco-friendly products.  Additionally, 1,000 chip bags have been shipped to the company. The PTO does receive a small fee for its waste. For instance, the PTO receives 2 cents per juice pouch and has earned a total of $60.   Although with bins collecting trash at Canyon Vista Pool and Piñon Park Pool, more money could be raised. Brehm said the students have really caught on to depleting the amount of garbage that is sent to the landfill.

Piñon Elmentary School PTO President Gloria Brehm introduced Terracycle to the school last year and the results have been significant.  Three thousand juice pouches have been given to TerraCycle, a company that turns non-recyclable waste into eco-friendly products.  Additionally, 1,000 chip bags have been shipped to the company. The PTO does receive a small fee for its waste. For instance, the PTO receives 2 cents per juice pouch and has earned a total of $60. Although with bins collecting trash at Canyon Vista Pool and Piñon Park Pool, more money could be raised. Brehm said the students have really caught on to depleting the amount of garbage that is sent to the landfill.

TerraCycle has introduced new Office Product Brigades, open to any supplier or consumer of office supplies and modeled after TerraCycle’s programs for schools that pay for the collection of drink pouches, yogurt cups and chip bags. These new programs, which collect any writing instrument, tape dispenser or glue product regardless of brand, were founded in response to the growing need to reduce the amount of useful materials going to landfill.

Teachers at Woodbine Elementary School used to see a lot of used Capri Sun drink pouches get thrown away.  Now the school earns two cents for every one of those pouches they collect and return them to a company called TerraCycle, which makes affordable, eco-friendly products from packaging waste. The school uses the program not only as a fundraising opportunity, but also as a way to educate and inspire their students.  Representative of the school, Susan Recu says, “We were looking for ways to raise money for the school that would also help the environment.”

Terracycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>   is always coming up with fun and cool ways to recycle, but they also  have come up with a way (actually 6 ways) Moms can go green, reduce  waste at home, AND raise money for their kids school and/or favorite  charity. Terracycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  realizes Moms have enough things to think about  without wondering how to reduce the amount of waste leaving their home  and heading to the local landfill. So they have come up with six new  Brigades (read as free collection programs!) to make it easier than ever  for parents to eliminate waste from their home while raising money for a  school or charity of their choice. All they need to do is collect and  send in the packaging you discard every day, TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  pays the postage  and contributes two cents per unit of waste returned. I keep mine in a  bag by the pantry next to the bag for Box Tops to make things easier.

As a parent, you’d like your home, community, and children’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. But fortunately, going green doesn’t have to be difficult, time-consuming or expensive. In fact, a smart and savvy parent can go green and save green at the same time. Here are a few easy ways you can change the world for the better, and even have fun while you’re at it: * 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.

Southwest-area schools are among many in the county earning cash by sending non-recyclable waste products to a New Jersey company that transforms the trash into new products like kites and backpacks. TerraCycle partnered with home city brand Malt-O-Meal Cereal Company to collect Malt-O-Meal packaging through “Cereal Bag Brigades” stationed in schools across the country. There are about 1,250 brigades, TerraCycle reported in June. Schools are paid 2 cents for every bag collected and sent to TerraCycle instead of the landfill.