Students at Edwards Elementary School have been collecting their snack wrappers for 13 weeks and have already filled one TerraCycle Zero Waste Box that will be recycled and turned into a variety of new products, such as park benches, bike racks, shipping pallets and recycling bins — and avoiding the local landfill.   The students, led by the school’s Green Team, are working to refill another TerraCycle Box.   “It teaches young people that they can make a difference with the tiniest of change,” said Allison Burgund, the owner of Fill & Refill in Edwards who funded the TerraCycle boxes at the local elementary school.   According to the school’s Green Team, students have collected more than 25 pounds of wrappers so far. In the first five weeks, the school collected 2,222 wrappers — about 444 per week. In 13 weeks, the Green Team has collected over 5,000 wrappers.   Edwards Elementary has blue bins in each of its classrooms where students know to throw snack wrappers, a hard-to-recycle product, according to TerraCycle. The school’s Green Team collects those bins and puts them in the lobby where the main box is. Students filled the first TerraCycle box before Christmas and is filling up its second.   Burgund also added a TerraCycle box in the teacher’s lounge for coffee pods. At her shop in Edwards, where she offers refillable daily-use, organic products, the mother of two also added a TerraCycle box for recycling razor blades.   “The kids killed it,” she said. “It shows that they really want to make a difference.”  

 

For more information about Fill & Refill in Edwards, visit http://www.fillandrefill.com. For more information about TerraCycle, a company focused on the collection and repurposing of complex waste streams, visit http://www.TerraCycle.com.