Local Utah Valley elementary school triples its P.E. budget by recycling with TerraCycle. Daily Herald Final

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.

Cigarette butts are one of the most commonly discarded nuisances in the United States, but with the help of TerraCycle and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, smokers can now cut down on this unsightly trash at offices, restaurants, and even at home. TerraCycle accepts everything from extinguished cigarettes to cellophane package linings and turns them into a variety of industrial products.

Two Chandler school take part in the Drink Pouch Brigade to earn money and win prizes for their school. SunTan Sun final

East Stroudsburg University held a Kick Butts Day where cigarette butts were picked up around campus to be sent to TerraCycle for recycling. Pocono Record Local News final

This fascinating assessment of our waste-based way of life equips us with knowledge on what to do about it. Tom Szaky’s Outsmart Waste is a very smart book about a dirty topic. As founder of TerraCycle, a company that devised a unique way to reuse, upcycle, and recycle waste, Szaky strongly believes that we can solve the problem of waste and, more specifically, that we can “bring a perspective of value to it, as nature does.” Szaky begins with a highly informative overview of waste as a by-product of society. He makes the point that all organisms create waste, but it becomes “the useful input for other organisms.” When humans created synthetic materials, however, they “broke this natural harmony.” Szaky believes that the consumer bears much of the responsibility for waste because of their penchant for disposability. For example, consumers are accustomed to disposing of items that are no longer fashionable or have outlived their usefulness. Szaky’s solution is deceptively simple: “If we all changed our daily vote (the stuff we buy), within a very short time we could solve the global garbage crisis.” Of course, there is more to it than that, and Szaky discusses in a fair amount of detail how buying differently is just one action that can make an impact. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Szaky’s intelligent treatise is the uncomplicated yet powerful manner in which he describes alternatives to the two most common ways of dealing with waste: burying it or burning it. Instead of landfilling and incinerating, which the author labels “linear solutions,” Szaky lobbies for reusing, upcycling, and recycling, which he considers “circular solutions.” He describes these three methods succinctly and then demonstrates how each can bring both economic and environmental benefits to human society. Szaky concludes his discussion with a summary of what each of us can do to play a role in solving the waste problem. Outsmart Waste is easy to read, with short chapters, large type, and high-impact photography. It is well written, researched, and designed. Szaky shows his ability to analyze a global problem and propose solutions that may already exist but are often viewed as too time consuming or expensive. According to Szaky, “there isn’t a product we create that can’t somehow be reused, upcycled, or recycled, and the idea of trash—of a useless output—is one with no basis in nature.” Szaky is clearly passionate about his subject; in fact, it is hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm and want to take action.

TerraCycle PR is heavily quoted (even used our words in the title) in the attached and below cover story in PR News, the second largest PR magazine in the world![gallery columns="1"]

La Asociación Región de Murcia Limpia, en colaboración con Terracycle ha puesto en marcha el sistema de recogida de material escolar “Sin tinta, aún pinta”. Este programa pretende recoger 10 Tm de residuos de material de escritura (bolígrafos, portaminas, tipex, subrayadores y rotuladores) para permutarlos por los 10.000 € que son necesarios para enviar 65 Tm de libros a zonas de Tierra del Fuego y Nicaragua.

TerraCycle was featured as one of the companies in Jersey Business's "Green Giants" cover story.[gallery columns="1"]