Drink pouches are tricky to puncture with a straw, and they're a trick to keep out of the garbage. But pouches collected by local students are finding a greener life outside the landfill, and they're earning schools a little green. Students at Behlau, Cibolo Green, Harmony Hills, Palo Alto and Potranco elementary schools have earned 2 cents apiece for more than 43,000 drink pouches, which New Jersey waste management company TerraCycle will turn into plant caddies. "The drink pouches are made of a multilayer film that is primarily polyethylene. They also have aluminum. Having all these materials together is difficult for municipal recycling," said Megan Yarnall, spokeswoman for TerraCycle. "We shred them and melt them in order to turn them into new products." In the landfill, the material could take a thousand years to decompose, she said. "There's all sorts of trash made from lunches," said Angie Oliverson, librarian and TerraCycle brigade coordinator at Harmony Hills.