PTO is excited to announce that our school is going GREEN! We teamed up with a program called TERRACYCLE.  We are going to be collecting a number of items to recycle and earn CASH.  Each classroom will have a bin to place collected items, which may be brought from home or just saved from lunch/snacks at school.  Please consider getting involved as we strive to make God’s creation a beautiful masterpiece one community at a time.  Below is a list of all items we are going to collect.  PTO will keep everyone informed throw here as to our progress throughout the year.

Terracycle is a company that collects previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste and converts it into new products, ranging from recycled park benches to upcycled backpacks. They do this by creating waste collection programs, which are referred to as “Brigades”, for each particular waste item. The LIU Post Recycling Program is currently a member of 9 Brigades. These Brigades include: -Drink Pouch Brigade: Accepted waste includes aluminum drink pouches and plastic drink pouches such as Capri Sun, Kool-Aid Jammers, and Honest Kids. -Candy Wrapper Brigade: Acceptable waste includes individual candy wrappers, large candy bags, and multi-pack candy bags. -Cookie Packaging Brigade: Accepted waste includes cookie packaging like Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and Keebler Cookies. -Chip Bag Brigade: Accepted waste includes chip bags, tortilla chip bags, pretzel bags, etc. -Paired Shoe Brigade: Accepted waste includes pairs of women’s, men’s, and children’s shoes, which may include athletic sneakers, cleats, flats, high heels, dress shoes, boots, and fashion or casual sneakers. Unacceptable waste includes ski boots, roller skates, roller blades, ice skates, completely broken or ruined footwear, single shoes, rubber flip flops, and slippers. -Writing Instruments Brigade: Accepted waste includes pens, pen caps, mechanical pencils, markers, highlighters, and permanent markers. Pencils are NOT accepted. -Elmer’s Glue Crew Brigade: Accepted waste includes Elmer’s glue sticks, Elmer’s glue bottles, and Elmer’s glue tops. ONLY Elmer’s brands are accepted. -Scotch Tape Brigade: Accepted waste includes all plastic tape dispensers and plastic tape cores. -Solo Cup Brigade: Accepted waste includes specially marked plastic #6 cups. Please bring these items to the collection boxes located at the Hillwood Information Desk. For each item that is collected, Terracycle will donate 2 cents to LIU Post. This money will be added to LIU Post Recycling Scholarship. If you have any questions regarding our Terracycle collection efforts, please contact Raheem Barnes, the Student Coordinator of the LIU Post Recycling Program, at LIUPostRecycling@gmail.com For additional information about Terracycle, you may visit http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/

While eating lunch with her children at school, Tracy Romzek was shocked to see how much of the meal was thrown out. Not just the food, but the things that could be recycled, like milk cartons. Romzek, 38, a Town of Menasha mother of two who has a master’s degree in environmental engineering, decided to research the best way to recycle the materials. Then, she talked to the school principal and school district officials. “I just saw something that could be done and chose to take action,” she said. Romzek admitted she didn’t know what it would take to get a milk carton recycling program started. But once she took action at Clayton, it opened the door to other recycling possibilities and, ultimately, other schools in the district. “It started as a carton thing but what it really turned out to be was cafeteria recycling,” she said, noting the program is currently implemented in all but one of Neenah’s elementary schools and at Horace Mann Middle School. She hopes to bring the program to Jefferson Elementary and Fox River Academy in Appleton. She signed up for recycling brigades with TerraCycle, a free waste collection program for hard-to-recycle materials. Clayton now collects dairy containers like yogurt tubs, drink pouches, Scotch tape dispensers, paper products, Solo cups, granola bar wrappers, cheese packaging and Lunchables containers, among other items. “That is waste being upcycled,” she said. “These are things that are not traditionally recycled.” Romzek also was awarded an environmental education grant from SCA Tissue, which allowed her to purchase containers and things needed for the recycling programs. She hopes to encourage the schools to get away from bagging the recyclables. The milk cartons, she noted, cannot be tied up in a plastic bag or they will rot. She also sought a local facility, Fox River Fiber in DePere, to take away the materials. “It’s pretty cool we have a local company that wants them,” she said. She sees recycling as a cost-saving measure for the district. “A third of the lunchroom waste is going into recycle rather than the garbage,” she said. “Recycling is cheaper to pick up than the garbage.”   Andrew Thorson, director of facilities and an engineer in the district, said he appreciates all Romzek has done.   “She’s very dedicated and she has a lot of energy to handle these things,” he said. “It’s very helpful to us that she can spend her time on that. We have the need but not necessarily the ability to do as much as she does.” Romzek also thinks the recycling programs educate the children. “A lot of these kids, once I showed them what can be recycled, they love it and they really try and they want to do the right thing,” she said, noting that by getting them “involved early on, they will care later.”

3M introduced a more eco-friendly version of one of its core products: Scotch masking tape. The new Scotch Greener Masking Tapes are made with 56 percent renewable resources, including paper backing made with 30 percent post consumer recycled content and adhesive made with natural, regenerating latex harvested from rubber trees. The tapes are manufactured using solvent-free and water-based processes. The tape core contains 87 percent post-consumer recycled fiber and the shipping cartons are made with 100 percent recycled fiber. 3M says the new tapes will provide DIYers and professional painters with a more environmentally sustainable choice for painting and other household or school uses. The tapes can also be used towards LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification credits for green building projects. The tape comes in two varieties: high adhesion for use on surfaces such as vinyl, carpet and wood; and medium-high adhesion for woodwork, wood cabinets and trim.

St. Joseph School recently won second place in TerraCycle’s Winter Waste Wonderland competition, a national contest. As the second-highest collector of lunch kits in TerraCycle’s Lunch Kit Brigade, St. Joseph School will receive 10,000 bonus points, which it can redeem for $100 cash. TerraCycle pioneered the concept of “upcycling,” which is taking materials that would otherwise be trash and converting them into other products by maintaining or improving the quality of the material. So for instance, Oreo cookie wrappers, have been turned into kites and juice pouches have been turned into pencil cases. Eighth grade parent Danielle Mergner has spearheaded St. Joseph’s TerraCycle program this year, recruiting the eighth graders to help direct the younger students in sorting their TerraCycle items and then in packaging them for shipment.

Both Chemung and Tioga counties recycle much material, including plastic grocery bags in Tioga. There are some things, however, neither county takes, such as plastic bowls or tubs for yogurt, margarine, Cool Whip, deli foods and the like. I always cringe when I throw those items away. If you'd like to reduce the quantity of waste going into the landfill and at the same time do something for the planet by donating items that will be refashioned into something else, it's now easy in Spencer-Van Etten. Following is a list of many items that you can recycle locally, as long as they are clean and free of food bits: juice pouches, empty chip bags (all sizes), candy bar wrappers from Mars/Wrigley or Cadbury, Lunchables lunch kits (all parts), plastic wrappers from Scott brand paper products, all Kraft cheese bags and cream cheese tubs, Scotch tape rolls and dispensers, shampoo and conditioner bottles, energy and granola bar wrappers, cookie bags and wrappers with the plastic trays, Colgate toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes and cardboard packaging, plastic butter tubs, plastic Solo cups, Elmer's glue sticks and bottles, yogurt cups, cell phones, MP3 players, ink jet printer cartridges, laptop computers, computer keyboards, computer mice and digital cameras.

Both Chemung and Tioga counties recycle much material, including plastic grocery bags in Tioga. There are some things, however, neither county takes, such as plastic bowls or tubs for yogurt, margarine, Cool Whip, deli foods and the like. I always cringe when I throw those items away. If you'd like to reduce the quantity of waste going into the landfill and at the same time do something for the planet by donating items that will be refashioned into something else, it's now easy in Spencer-Van Etten. Following is a list of many items that you can recycle locally, as long as they are clean and free of food bits: juice pouches, empty chip bags (all sizes), candy bar wrappers from Mars/Wrigley or Cadbury, Lunchables lunch kits (all parts), plastic wrappers from Scott brand paper products, all Kraft cheese bags and cream cheese tubs, Scotch tape rolls and dispensers, shampoo and conditioner bottles, energy and granola bar wrappers, cookie bags and wrappers with the plastic trays, Colgate toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes and cardboard packaging, plastic butter tubs, plastic Solo cups, Elmer's glue sticks and bottles, yogurt cups, cell phones, MP3 players, ink jet printer cartridges, laptop computers, computer keyboards, computer mice and digital cameras.

TerraCycle, the New Jersey-based company that specializes in upcycling waste packaging into durable consumer products, will soon launch a program for disposable diapers, according to Waste & Recycling News. Ernie Simpson, global vice president of research and development for Terracycle, says the company is 90 percent finished with the development of a continuous process for collecting, sterilizing and processing used diapers. Certain parts of the diaper will be compostable, and the remaining materials will be upcycled into plastic lumber, pallets and outdoor furniture.

"The monthly drop off on Recycle Day is new, both in having a once/month date and also by opening it up to miscellaneous products (per website). Items range found on our list include old toothbrushes and toothpaste, old make-up containers, plastic wrap from paper products, Elmers glue products, and juice pouches. There are more products, too! "Unfortunately, we don't at this time take pop cans or items, which are not on our list. We are currently working with www.Terracycle.net and are limited by what they offer. Terracycle pays for shipping of all products, so this is a help. Of the products that we collect, only one has any restriction of the brand, which is Elmers, but this may be any size (glue sticks or bottles). All other products may be any brand or size," Tysee said.