A company called Terracycle, featured last year on National Geographic's series Garbage Moguls, recycles pens, candy wrappers, tooth brushes, and even that supposed scourge of the waste bin: dirty diapers. The materials are remade as park benches. Any young athlete has already noticed the recycled tires in her playground mulch, turf cushioning, and track-and-field surfacing; but tires also appear in cosmetics and in the shock absorbers that now grace many highway guard rails. Even wax-coated cardboard, long considered a contaminated recyclable, can be repurposed as a fireplace wood substitute.

In 2009 a parent volunteer at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Glen Burnie saw an advertisement for a company called TerraCycle. Its “Get cash for trash” headline caught her attention, and before you could say, ‘Sounds too good to be true,’ there was a bin in the school cafeteria for the students to deposit their empty juice pouches at lunch. Since then, the school has collected over 70,000 juice pouches and recycles an average of 1,000 pouches per week during the school year. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, TerraCycle began upcycling various products around 2007. An initiative that started with drink pouches, today the company offers more than 40 Brigades® that collect what was previously non-recyclable or difficult-to- recycle waste. A brigade is simply the term TerraCycle uses to designate its donations—so there is, for example, the Yogurt Container Brigade, the Cheese Packaging Brigade, and the Candy Wrapper Brigade. St. Paul’s initally joined the Drink Pouch Brigade. Most of the brigades are free for participants and include free shipping as well as a donation for each piece of waste recycled.

In de vorige nieuwsbrief berichtten we u over de pennen inzamelactie. Inmiddels is er een grote doos op weg naar Terracycle. Groep 6 spande de kroon, twee inzamelbakken vol kwamen voort uit hun ‘verzamelwoede’, complimenten! Natuurlijk gaan we gewoon door met inzamelen. Dus iedere balpen, vulpen, vulpotlood, rollerpen, gewone kleurstift, fineliner, tekst-marker, permanent-marker, whiteboard marker en correctieproduct ( vloeistof en tapes ) mag in de verzamelbak in de groep, ongeacht het merk of materiaal.

The Maricopa Community Colleges and a national company called TerraCycle want to save the planet one pencil at a time. Ten MCC schools are now part of the Writing Instrument Brigade, a program under TerraCycle, in which they box and ship used writing utensils to TerraCycle and receive a monetary donation in return. Since joining the program in early 2012, MCC has shipped more than 6,000 utensils to the organization. With the used and abused pens and pencil, TerraCycle breaks them down and brings them back to life in the form of park benches, watering cans, and recycling bins. TerraCycle launched its recycling programs in 2007 and has since collected more than 2 billion pieces of waste from being discarded in landfills. Through the Writing Instrument Brigade, they have donated more than $3.5 million to charities and schools. “We are 10 colleges, two skill centers and numerous education centers, all dedicated to educational excellence and to meeting the needs of businesses and the citizens of Maricopa County, Arizona,” said Chanda Fraulino, recycle program coordinator for MCC, in a statement. “The sustainability coordinators and several of our colleges collaboratively participate in the TerraCycle brigades. The best part about the Writing Instruments brigade is that we divert waste from the landfill while earning money to support student scholarships.” TerraCycle has many arms reaching into the field of sustainability. They partner with companies like Sanford, who sponsors the Writing Instrument Brigade, and Frito-Lay, who sponsors another program called the Chip Bag Brigade. Overall, there are 90,000 organizations who take part in the “Brigade” recycling and upcycling programs worldwide. MCC is one of 1,300 businesses and organizations who are a part of the Writing Instrument Brigade. With the money coming in from recycling used utensils, MCC is planning to support the Maricopa Foundation for the Sustainability Scholarship fund. These scholarships will be awarded to a student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in sustainability or environmental science. To find out more, visit www.terracycle.com.

Honest Tea, an organic beverage company, made headlines when it launched an app to recycle Facebook posts last week and set up a 30-foot-tall inflatable recycling bin in New York City's Times Square on Monday. It's all part of a campaign the 14-year-old company, bought by Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) last year, calls "The Great Recycle." The company's goal is to recycle every bottle it produces by 2020. That's a worthy target, especially considering that Honest Tea generates approximately 20 million glass bottles and 60 million plastic bottles annually. It has a long way to go before it's as sustainable as it can be. If I could change one thing about the company, it would be to reduce its use of plastic bottles and single serve juice containers. Studies have shown that plastic bottles leach, and plastic is made of petroleum products, which is not a renewable source. Worse yet is single-use products, which can't be reused.