TerraCycle creates national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste. Anyone can sign up for these programs, called the Brigades, and send them waste. Then, the collected waste is turned into different products and materials available at major retailers. Terracycle encourages teams from the 21 countries where their Brigades operate in to beat their personal and national records during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. For every country which accomplishes the goal, all the participants who sent waste during the games will receive TerraCycle points. Also, all the shipments will be counted towards the global goal of collecting 4 million pieces of waste. For more information about Terracycle and the Recycling Games, please visit http://www.terracycle.com

Cloth diapering has become popular these days, but cloth toilet paper may be where some people draw the line. Not Christena Little. Little decided to transition her lifestyle to “zero-waste” nearly a year ago, and hasn’t looked back since. While she hasn’t made the plunge to cloth toilet paper just yet, it is one of the next steps she plans to take to move closer to her zero-waste goal. Making her own condiments and deodorant spray and even taking jars to the grocery to transport her meat are just a few of the other measures Little has taken to reduce waste. “My personality, when I do something, I’m gung-ho, in it to win it,” Little said, though she still continues to work to find the best ways to achieve her zero-waste goal. “It’s still a major work in progress.” A zero-waste lifestyle involves essentially what its name implies, except Little reminds people that it is more of a “minimal-waste” lifestyle than zero-waste. People who choose this lifestyle live their lives and run their homes in a sustainable manner that produces as little waste as possible. For Little, this means buying only items that can be composted or recycled, or investing in quality items that can be kept for a long time. Although the stay-at-home mom first started thinking about downsizing when her first daughter, Mady, was born. But it was after the birth of her second daughter, Sophia, when she decided to make the big transition to zero-waste. Right around the time Sophia, 11 months, was born, Little came across www.zerowastehome.blogspot.com, which is run by a mom who has been living a zero-waste lifestyle for several years. “The website is amazing. It’s such an inspiration. When I read it I thought, ‘That’s what I want,’” Little said. After Mady was born, Little found herself spending days organizing her family’s belongings and began to feel trapped by all of the stuff in her house. “I thought, ‘How crazy is this that I spend two days organizing all my things and all I did was move my stuff from one box to another, from one cabinet to another,’” Little said. “When I had Sophia, I was so overwhelmed. We just had so much stuff I felt like I couldn’t get out of my house, because I do like everything to be organized and no clutter.” At first, transitioning was a little tough, particularly for Little’s husband, Jeff. The couple had already used cloth diapers with their first daughter, but some of the other changes were more challenging. For instance, Jeff, a pilot, enjoys collecting items from his travels and items that have been passed down to him, so he has a cabinet in their dining room where he keeps those things. “It was really hard for my husband. He is still transitioning,” Little said. “I had to compromise a bit and realize that this is something that I want to do personally and I can’t push it on my husband.” Luckily, Little said, her daughters are young enough that they don’t know any different than the zero-waste lifestyle. At first, Maddy missed packaged snacks such as granola bars and crackers, “but she’s forgotten about those,” Little said. “Now, she likes raw vegetables, fruit.” Little, who estimates she and her family will have produced around two bags of trash during the last year, still has a trash can in her home, but doesn’t want that to give friends or extended family members the impression that she is OK with them bringing items that can’t be composted or recycled into her home. Little said that most of her friends and family respect her lifestyle choice and try to bring these items over or will take their trash with them. Another challenge Little faced while transitioning her home was figuring out what to do with many of the belongings that she wanted to get rid of. “So I did a lot of research. Unfortunately, a lot of it did have to get thrown away,” Little said. But after getting rid of those items, she vowed never to buy anything she couldn’t pass down or use for a long time, she said. And she has made a long list of changes in her household to minimize her family’s environmental impact. She uses compostable toothbrushes, fills her own bottles of bulk shampoo and conditioner from Good Foods Market, makes her own soap and uses biodegradable detergent in a recyclable box – only after a unsuccessful attempt to make her own detergent. While Little uses little makeup, she does like Origins products because they accept and recycle their used cosmetic containers. She also said that Aveda also accepts empty product bottles in their stores, as well. Looking at company practice such as these is just another step that Christena has taken to transition to a zero-waste home. “Once I started, it kind of consumed my whole life in everything that I do. I found it wasn’t just that I was trying to get rid of my trash. Then it went into the practices of a company. I look into everything,” Little said. In Little’s kitchen, her food is bought fresh – nothing packaged – and she uses every item she buys, reducing trash, food waste and saving money. “I found that I would be buying all these items that I only needed for one recipe and then they would go bad because I didn’t know what else to use it for. That’s expensive.” Little said. “Cooking is simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated. I think when you have a pantry full of stuff, it is so overwhelming that you don’t even know what to do with it all.” Additionally, by changing her shopping practices, Little and her husband can afford to feed their family like she has always desired. “I always wanted to buy organic. I wanted that lifestyle, but I thought we could never afford it,” Little said. “But, by switching to a more zero-waste kitchen, we are able to afford organic, grass-fed meats, all the stuff I always wanted and what I think is important to feed my family.” One exception Little noted was that her family doesn’t drink cow’s milk, so she still buys almond milk that comes in a container that is only recycled in a few places. However, Little mentioned http://www.terracycle.com, which lists collection “brigades” that accept items like this. The specific brigade will send you a box to mail them the items and they either make a new product out of the item or find another use for it. While Little admits that she and her family are still working towards becoming as waste-free as possible, she is working to hopefully “get there someday,” she said.

Even if you sell the most eco-friendly products on earth, you can’t control how consumers eventually dispose of them. Do they end up in landfills? Get recycled? Donated or resold? Recyclable plastic, after all, does little good if consumers toss it in the trash can.

We have SO much going on right now in room 123! Check it out: *BRIGADES, BRIGADES, BRIGADES! I am sure you’ve heard of the 5th grade G21 project. We have been recycling 3 different types of brigades (glue sticks/bottles, empty tape rolls, as well as beauty product bottles/cases). A company named TerraCycle will give us 2 cents per brigade. We will then decide what we want to purchase for our courtyard to make it a more useful environment (an outdoor classroom environment). So far 2nd grade has won 3 weeks in a row! Who will win this week?! Don’t forget to RECYCLE! If you have any questions on what exactly you can recycle for the beauty product brigade, please feel free to email me!

OWATONNA — While changing diapers on a baby is a necessary duty, it is not fun. It is easy to understand why disposable diapers quickly topped reusable cloth diapers as the bottom-covering garment of choice for incontinent Americans once these handy items came on the market. Many people, including me during the years I regularly changed diapers, felt at least a slight pang of guilt as our garbage cans filled with the smelly items and as we plunked down more hard-earned cash for a box that emptied all too quickly. In actuality, while Americans dispose of millions of diapers annually, dirty diapers comprise only about one and one-half percent of all materials buried in landfills. Still, it would be great if there was a more environmentally friendly alternative to getting rid of used disposable diapers.

CONCORD, NC -- The New Year always brings resolutions at my house. I’ve had the same resolutions year after year, generic goals like getting healthier, losing weight and exercising more. This year, I made a bucket list of things I want to do, specific things that may help others or the planet, or both. Maybe if I focus on a greater good, a global good if possible, those other things will fall into place. By publishing the list, I am hoping I’ll be more inclined to complete them all (or at least make a much heartier attempt than in years past). Thank you, reader, for being my accountability partner. The best intentions here.

Below are some simple things that your family can do together at home to be earth-friendly: * Use one cup a day. Have each family member use only one cup for the whole day. This helps your household cut down on dirty dishes and reduces the number of times you need to run the dishwasher each week. Explain to your kids how this saves water, detergent and electricity. * Donate home goods. Several animal shelters in the Triangle use old carpeting or carpeting scraps, as well as towels, blankets and linens to make comfy beds for the animals. Your children can also donate worn-out stuffed animals and tennis balls to be used as dog toys. Make the donation in person, as a family. * Flashy trash. You may not think twice about throwing out shiny chip bags, candy and cookie wrappers, or yogurt containers, but maybe you should. TerraCycle (www.terracycle.net) crafts items like these into eco-friendly and stylish products such as tote bags, picture frames and pencil cases. Ask your kids to bring home their lunchboxes with their trash still inside. The donations can even earn your family a bit of cash. * Redeem soda-can tabs. Americans consume more than 180 billion canned drinks per year. That translates into about $64 million worth of aluminum pull-tabs, according to Nicole Bouchard Boles in How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist. Keep a jar in your kitchen that your family can fill with soda can tabs. When it gets full, donate it to The Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill or Durham. These organizations will redeem them at aluminum recycling centers and use the money to help fund their programs. * Eat your yard — literally. "Oranges are raised on farms, picked and refrigerated, processed, trucked and refrigerated again," says Nan Chase, author of Eat Your Yard! Edible Trees, Shrubs, Vines, herbs and Flowers for Your Landscape. "By the time you drive them home from the store, that's a huge amount of energy used just to get vitamin C to your door," she says. Chase advises families to landscape their yards with edible plants. Her book offers some easy ideas like planting a few seeds of chard, which looks like a garden plant, amongst your flowers. Landscaping with edible plants can also make children eager to eat fresh food. "When kids get a chance to take something off the tree or vine or out of the ground and put it in their mouth, they will get excited about it," Chase says. Be sure that you and your children wash your hands and edibles, especially if you use pesticides or fertilizers. You should even wash whole produce that will be eaten without the skin or rind so pathogens aren't transferred inside from your hands or knife. via Charlotte Parent

Frito-Lay is constantly looking at ways to improve our environment and has recently partnered with TerraCycle to turn waste into new products. Your used packaging will be given a second lifecycle as an everyday product, like a clipboard, tote bag, or trash can. All you have to do is collect used Frito-Lay chip bags and send them to TerraCycle. They even pay the postage! For your help in advancing the "zero-landfill" initiative, for each bag you send in, $0.02 will be donated to the school or non-profit organization of your choice. Small steps can make a big difference if everyone helps out! Find out how to participate.

Schools generate lots of waste that’s thoughtlessly disposed of when it could very well be recycled. A unique recycling technique named TerraCycle has brought about an enormous difference in the recycling patterns of schools in the country. This program takes the action to gather food packaging items that take time and effort to recycle and in addition pays schools for their work. As per a MichigansThumb.com report, this program awards points to schools based on the volume of recyclable goods brought to TerraCycle. The creation of single-serve food items has increased the amount of disposable waste and added to an increasing pile of dangerous waste materials in landfills. TerraCycle promotes the recycling of food packaging items including candy wrappers and packaging for chips, cereals, coffee, cookies, beverages and gum. Additionally, they take many other items including plastic bags, cups, glue containers, as well as electronic merchandise including laptops, music players, cameras, and mobile phones. Schools have total control over the variety of objects they want to recycle. Participation in this program is absolutely free for all schools as TerraCycle recommends execution of as many eco-friendly techniques as possible.

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