Earth Day Every Day and MLK Children's Center--- Martin Luther King Children’s Center, a school district before and after school program on the campus of MLK K-8 Elementary School, collects a variety of items for recycling with TerraCycle.  The Children’s Center collected drink pouches, used toothbrushes, empty toothpaste tubes, empty beauty bottles, cheese wrappers along with dairy tub containers and sends them postage paid to TerraCycle.  MLK Children’s Center earns about $.02 per item. TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. TerraCycle’s purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, then a 20-year-old Princeton University freshman, TerraCyle began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid worm poop in used soda bottles. Since then Terracycle has grown into one of the fastest growing green companies in the world. Terracycle is creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable waste.  MLK Children’s Center is just one group of 20 million people collecting waste in over 20 countries. TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market.  The goal is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that today must be sent to a landfill. So far, MLK Children’s Center has sent in 18,146 drink pouches alone. Staff, students and families collect these items from their homes along with collection tubs in the school cafeteria at lunchtime. It’s a great way we celebrate Earth Day everyday! Good for the environment, community and especially the children. Here are some accolades from the students: “Terracycle is cool because we help the environment by recycling our trash.” — Leiomi Gastinell, sixth grader “It’s so easy to save and bring in the items.” — Alyson Eystad, fourth grader “It’s a good way to help the environment and the children’s center without doing anything hard or extreme.” — Elise Ledesma, sixth grader

 

Girl Scout Troop 1126 helped reduce waste at Oak Meadow Elementary School in El Dorado Hills, all while raising money for school supplies for homeless children. The troop of fifth-grade girls recently completed a year-long Journey program exploring electricity and energy savings. The troop chose to participate in the TerraCycle program as its final project. TerraCycle helps eliminate waste by creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste. Troop 1126 collected juice pouches, which go to TerraCycle to be recycled into various products from tote bags and pencil cases to plastic lumber and pavers. The troop will redeem TerraCycle points, valued at one cent per point, to be used for their charitable gift supporting school supplies for homeless children. The troop members described their journey and final project as “awesome, fun, exciting, amazing and cool.” “We are really proud of what we’ve done,” said Madelyn Minami of their efforts to help clean up the environment and support children with school supplies. “We really wanted to help kids our age,” said Anna Slojkowski. As part of their final project the girls publicized their effort on campus, collect juice pouches each day following the lunch periods, weighed the pouches and packaged them up to send to TerraCycle. Troop 1126 members hope to continue this effort once they leave Oak Meadow for middle school, by handing off the project to another younger troop on the campus.

Tom Szaky founded TerraCycle in 2002. Originally a producer of organic fertilizer, the company shifted its focus to upcycling and recycling solutions in 2007. Today, TerraCycle is a multi-million dollar business and works with thousands of schools, NGOs and brands to divert billions of units of waste a year. Partnering with brands is a part of TerraCycle's business model. What do you think makes a partnership successful? Successful partnerships are all about aligning interests. You want to have brands who see the problem in the same way and are really interested in having a solution. For example, L’Oreal is really committed to solving cosmetic waste and they're getting really behind that with us. TerraCycle been able to generate positive PR by telling its story through various media outlets. How can small businesses take advantage of the PR opportunities available to them? The easiest way to do that is to make the job of the reporter very easy. Don’t approach it like you just want to get your propaganda out there, but instead think about it from the reporter’s perspective. Reporters want to have interesting stories and they want to be able to get good content. The easier you can make it for a reporter to get great content, the easier it will be to do an article. How can a small business turn a negative review or PR experience into a positive one? The best way to turn a negative into a positive is to own it and be transparent about it. Own the issue, because if you own the issue, no one can come back to you and hit you for it. The press will only hit you for it if you’re not acknowledging and owning the problem.

At Humke Elementary School, there are several such volunteers, and Patti Ebbe is just one of them. Ebbe is president of the school’s Humke Involved Parent Organization, or HIPO, and she also helps out with day-to-day operations. “We raise money to help with monetary and other needs that the teachers or students may need,” Ebbe said. “At the beginning of last school year, we were able to purchase oscillating stand fans for all the classrooms. We purchased four iPads with accessories for the teachers to use in the classroom. We were able to pay for some of the reading materials that were used, just to name a few things.” “Last year we collected 13,333 juice pouches for a company called TerraCycle,” Ebbe said. “You don’t have to wash them out or even take out the straws. You just collect them, send them in using their free shipping, redeem your points and they send you a check. Our ‘Drink Pouch Brigade’ earned Humke Elementary $399.99, or three cents apiece — for basically garbage! We are getting paid to collect garbage that would have gone into a landfill. And the juice pouches are being recycled into new products.” “It doesn’t take a lot of time!” she said. “You don’t have to come to every meeting. Maybe you just come to the classroom to say ‘hello.’ You can spend 15 to 20 minutes at an event and make a difference. It’s important because kids like to see their parents get involved … especially at the elementary school age. They like to show off their parents and grandparents.”

The district provides between $150 and $200 a year for Eagle Valley Elementary to buy balls and physical education equipment for students. P.E. teacher Joel Huebner was looking to expand that budget through donations, when three years ago, he bought Capri Sun drink pouches for his child's soccer team and saw an ad on the package about schools being paid to recycle drink pouches and chip bags through a company called TerraCycle. TerraCycle was created in 2001 when then-20-year-old Princeton University freshman Tom Szaky began packaging liquid worm fertilizer in used soda bottles. Today, TerraCycle has grown into one of the fastest-growing green companies in the world, according to its website. The company makes dozens of products from the recycled trash, including a lunch box made of Capri Sun packages and CD jewel cases made of Cheetos packages. Not only was the school able to buy new balls, but also equipment for lawn bowling, badminton and indoor bocce ball for winter. Terracycle has recycled 2.5 billion pieces of trash gathered by volunteers since 2001, paying out $5.5 million to charities, according to the company website.    

TerraCycle has found a way to reuse and upcycle plastic waste into new products. The polystyrene in the hundreds of plastic cups I just shipped to TerraCycle will be used to make backpacks, trashcans, containers and more. In addition to plastic cups, TerraCycle also accepts un-recyclable chip bags, CapriSun drink pouches, Lunchables and practically any other plastic you can name, including iPods, computers, and old cell phones. TerraCycle rewards its plastic donors by typically giving them 2 cents per unit of waste that is sent to them. TerraCycle recommends donors donate this money to charity. Since 2001, the company has been able to provide more than $5 million in charitable donations. Who doesn’t like selling trash for money? Through its upcycling program, TerraCycle has revolutionized the recycling industry. Although trash still carries a negative stigma, TerraCycle is beginning to debunk the myth that whatever we throw away is no longer useful. Every day, Americans discard plastic products that took more energy and water to make than the value they provided to the consumer. Producing bottled water requires up to 2,000 times more energy than drinking tap water, yet Americans remain addicted to plastic bottles. TerraCycling is easy, efficient and profitable. Through its upcycling program, TerraCycle has revolutionized the recycling industry. Although trash still carries a negative stigma, TerraCycle is beginning to debunk the myth that whatever we throw away is no longer useful.

Johnston students helped raise more than $7 million for charity through the TerraCycle Brigade Program.

A company rooted in worm compost and the resulting organic fertilizer, Trenton’s TerraCycle started in 2001 as an enterprise thought up by Princeton University freshman Tom Szaky. Now, it’s a multi-million dollar waste-eliminating business that operates across the U.S. and in 22 countries around the world. While sales of the organic fertilizer ignited the company, it’s the free recycling program TerraCycle developed that really helped it take off. “Since 2007, when we first launched the program, we have collected 2.5 billion pieces of garbage,” says Albe Zakes, global vice president of communication for TerraCycle.