Did you know you could be raking in the pennies while doing something that’s good for the environment:  recycling?   It all started when I bought five packages of Capri Suns at Kroger to fulfill part of a rebate I was working on. On the back of the package was information about Terracycle, a company that has kept over 1.2 billion pieces of trash out of landfills while fashioning super cool backpacks, pencil cases, tote bags, trash cans, even cork boards! Even more amazing to me was that they would donate $ .02 per pouch collected, to the school or charity of my choice!

The parents of one of my daughter’s classmates are taking recycling to a new level. Inspired by TerraCycle’s Drink Pouch Brigade, they’ve been collecting used CapriSun drink pouches and turning them into cool lunch bags. Last Sunday, they hosted a work party at their home, and kids helped create and decorate one-of-a-kind artsy bags using a sewing machine. When the school holds its annual Art Walk fundraiser a few weeks from now, these bags will be part of the items on display. Isn’t that cool?

It’s been said over and over again: reduce, reuse and recycle in order to help Mother Earth. But how many of us actually heed this call and live our lives consciously reducing, reusing and recycling? Not many, that’s for sure. Good thing that people like Tom Szaky not only take up the environmental battle cry with a passion, but turn it into a useful enterprise that shows the rest of the world just how waste elimination can easily be handled. Terracycle, Szaky’s social enterprise, is a prime example of literally turning trash into cash.

I signed up Dominic's school with a program called www.terracycle.com. You can even print a mailing label, so there are minimal shipping costs (just the cost of a padded envelope or box). Right now, I send them used Capri Sun pouches. The next time you think about throwing something out because you think it's "junk" take a few extra minutes to determine if it really can't be recycled or reused. You just might be doing something good for the environment!!

Holt Elementary School is one of the only schools in the Eugene School District that participates in a program put on by Terra Cycle, a New Jersey based company that turns previously non-recyclable items such as chip bags, candy wrappers, juice pouches and yogurt containers into new products that range from park benches to backpacks to pencil cases, all thanks to Chastain. “I’ve been recycling for almost 40 years, because I feel that it is something I can do to help save the environment,” say Chastain. “It just seemed like a wise thing for me to do.” This program first caught Chastain’s eye in 2009 when she read a label on her son’s juice pouch box saying, “Earn money for your school.” After that, she started having the children in her son’s class collect juice pouches and she would then personally wash them and send them into Terra Cycle. Terra Cycle, which was started back 2001, has grown tremendously as a company and in 2012 it celebrated its 9th straight year of growing revenue.  The company recently expanded and created a system where schools can send in recycled items that can then be redeemed for points that benefit different charities that provide clean drinking water in Africa, meals to homeless Americans, or school supplies to homeless students.

Pack It Up The #1 best way that you can green your lunch is to pack it. Instead of using plastic or paper bags, you should choose a reusable lunch box. Why? According to the EPA, children who bring a bag lunch to school every day create about 67 pounds of waste by the end of the year! If you can imagine how many children are in school and how many people work every day, that’s millions of pounds of brown bag waste.

Here are a few reusable lunch boxes that are great alternatives to bags: TerraCycle Drink Pouch Lunch Box, ACME Cotton Recycled Lunch Bag, Vy & Elle Lunch Bag, Mini Bento Stainless Steel Lunch Jar.

Mathis, a sixth grader at Nightengale Elementary, asked principal Mrs. Jordan’s permission to get started. With a little help from his mom and from his sixth grade ELA teacher Mrs. Powers, Mathis created flyers that he put up around school asking students and staff to save their of empty CapriSun pouches.   “There is a blue bin in the cafeteria – kids put their CapriSun pouches in it and then my mom and I collect them, take out the straws and make sure they are flat. Once we have collected a full bin, we ship them to TerraCycle,” Mathis said.   TerraCycle, a green company, upcycles and recycles hard-to-recycle waste such as juice pouches, Solo cups and chip bags. Removing these items from the waste stream reduces pressure on landfills.

MASSENA -- Inspired by the back of a beverage, a Nightengale Elementary student has launched a campaign to help his school and the environment. Mathis LeBlanc, a sixth-grader, said it all started while he was downing a CapriSun. Reading the back of the packaging, he learned he could earn money for his school and help the environment by recycling his juice pouches. LeBlanc told his mother that he wanted to launch a school-wide recycling effort, sponsored by the juice company. With a little help from his mom and from his sixth grade ELA teacher Mrs. Powers, Mathis created flyers asking students and staff to save their of empty pouches. “There is a blue bin in the cafeteria – kids put their pouches in it and then my mom and I collect them, take out the straws and make sure they are flat. Once we have collected a full bin, we ship them to TerraCycle” said LeBlanc. TerraCycle, a green company, upcycles and recycles hard-to-recycle waste such as juice pouches, solo cups and chip bags. Removing these items from the waste stream reduces pressure on landfills. TerraCycle weighs LeBlanc’s pouches and sends him a check. LeBlanc has chosen to donate money from the juice company to Nightengale Elementary’s student council. Once the pouches are cleaned and sorted, they are ready to be repurposed into backpacks, pencil cases, and lunch boxes. Any pouches that are too dirty to be upcycled and are shredded and compressed to be made into new materials.

Solve and Benefit

TerraCycle’s team of scientists and designers have found ways to recycle and upcycle the waste we collect into cool new products. When we upcycle a piece of waste we leverage both the material it is made from and the original shape of the waste. When we recycle we transform the collected waste into new products through a variety of processes like injection molding. Best of all, when you're done with a TerraCycle product you can put it back in the original Brigade collection program and get credit for the waste a second time. One Brigade focuses on collecting candy wrappers. Participating in a TerraCycle Brigade is totally free. There are no signup or participation fees, and the shipping is covered by the program. Once you have joined the Candy Wrapper Brigade®, simply follow the steps below to receive your TerraCycle points:

TerraCycle Ceo Tom Szaky was interviewed by Philadelphia SmartCEO Magazine about eco-entrepreneurship.