Millard Elementary helps with nationwide recycling effort
Include USA Entenmann’s Little Bites
Millard Elementary School in Fremont is kicking off the new year with good habits and keeping snack pouches out of landfills. Through a free, national recycling program in partnership with TerraCycle, sponsored by Entenmann's Little Bites¨, Millard Elementary School has helped the nationwide collection reach the milestone of 2 million snack pouches diverted from the waste stream. Along with keeping the pouches out of landfills, collectors earn points that can be redeemed for cash donations to the non-profit or school of the collector's choice. Through the efforts of collectors like Millard Elementary School, donations have just passed $35,000.
"The TerraCycle recycling program was started by Mrs. Ellen Ng at Millard, who single handedly supervised and recycled items through TerraCycle creating awareness and trying to educate the children about the importance of recycling," said Millard resident Subin Varghese. "When my older child was in kindergarten, I became interested in the program and myself and two other moms (Kyoko Ehling and Fumiko Moon) joined forces with Ellen."
TerraCycle is an international recycling company that finds innovative solutions for materials not typically accepted at municipal recycling facilities. Through free recycling programs, participants collect waste and ship using a pre-paid shipping label to TerraCycle for processing. TerraCycle recycles the waste into plastic that can be used for products such as park benches, recycling bins and playgrounds.
Varghese continued, "The TerraCycle program was successful because we had the support of our principal and we sent reminders to our school community on what to collect via our school newsletter. It definitely was a messy job, and time consuming. However, we are happy to do it because we are educating our kids about recycling and taking care of the environment."
The Entenmann's Little Bites Pouch Recycling Program is open to any individual, school or organization interested in reducing local landfill waste. To learn more about TerraCycle, please visit www.terracycle.com or www.littlebites.com.