In 2009 a parent volunteer at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Glen Burnie saw an advertisement for a company called TerraCycle. Its “Get cash for trash” headline caught her attention, and before you could say, ‘Sounds too good to be true,’ there was a bin in the school cafeteria for the students to deposit their empty juice pouches at lunch. Since then, the school has collected over 70,000 juice pouches and recycles an average of 1,000 pouches per week during the school year.
Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, TerraCycle began upcycling various products around 2007. An initiative that started with drink pouches, today the company offers more than 40 Brigades® that collect what was previously non-recyclable or difficult-to- recycle waste. A brigade is simply the term TerraCycle uses to designate its donations—so there is, for example, the Yogurt Container Brigade, the Cheese Packaging Brigade, and the Candy Wrapper Brigade. St. Paul’s initally joined the Drink Pouch Brigade. Most of the brigades are free for participants and include free shipping as well as a donation for each piece of waste recycled.
One thing at the Earth Day assembly got me interested. The thing was Terracycle products. As shown in the assembly, regular things like folders and pencil cases are made out recycled items like juice pouches. I decided to check out their website, terracycle.net, and found a wide variety of stuff from scrapbooks to boom boxes. These things have a reasonable pricing and give a new twist to recycling! So what are you waiting for? Go to terracycle.net and see what you can get and do to help the environment! Go green!
When my daughter, Olivia Moreland, told me last summer that she wanted to pick up trash at her school, I thought it was a passing fancy, something that she would forget when the school year started.
But she didn’t forget. She persisted and decided she wanted to create Earth Patrol, a group at her school that could help.
Since the club’s formation, ambassadors – as members are known – have recycled Capri Sun drink pouches through TerraCycle, performed regular classroom audits to monitor recycling and reuse activities, scoured the campus in monthly cleanup efforts and planted hundreds of bulbs donated by Mecklenburg County as part of the 2012 Great American Clean-Up and Keep Mecklenburg Beautiful campaign.
TerraCycle, upcycled design powerhouse and purveyor of worm poop plant food, helps usher in spring with two new products: A watering can made from granola bags and a plant caddy made from juice pouches.
El Descanso Elementary School student Katelyn Kienitz’s campaign to raise money for her school began when she ran out of pages in her math journal.
“I needed a new math journal for school and (my teacher) didn’t have any extra notebooks,” said the 11-year-old fifth-grader. “My school is a very nice school, but we need more classroom supplies.”
“If you just leave your bag of garbage by your front door I’ll stop by and grab it on my way to work.”
This probably isn’t something most people Facebook message their friends about at 10:00 at night. But, not only is this really a message sent to me from a friend a few nights ago, but I also really did run and, excitedly, pull a bag of garbage I’d been saving for her out of the closet and set it by my front door.
TerraCycle, the Newark, N.J. based brand has evolved into a $20 million-a-year operation, since it was founded in 2001 by Princeton University dropout Tom Szaky.
In a few short years, the company has pivoted but not abandoned its original focus on "worm poop" fertilizer -- the innovative organic plant food, packed in recycled bottle, that was brewed from worm-rich compost piles -- towards a broader focus on packaging reduction and reuse.
Partnering with schools and numerous major consumer packaged good companies, TerraCycle is capturing both pre- and post-consumer packaging waste to upcycle it: such as converting Capri sun bags into satchels, pencil cases, and other merchandise.
The kindergarten classes continue to collect Capri Sun pouches to recycle through the TerraCycle program. Please send in empty Capri Sun pouches with straws removed. All money earned is used to support projects in our school.
MCLEAN, Va. (WUSA) - Trash has a new meaning at Churchill Road Elementary School. Some of it means money. Some of it means food for the hungry. And some of it means a bumper crop of vegetables this spring.
The school produces 300 pounds of trash everyday, but only throws out 30 pounds. The rest of the 270 pounds of waste is recycled, turned into compost, or upcycled, meaning it's used again as it is.
"Nothing is disposable. Everything has a use everything has a value and you just don't throw it away because you think its trash," says Debra Maes, the mother who started the program last school year.
Broward College's TerraCycle is one of nation's best collection program. TerraCycle pays for material collected. Money from the program go towards the Michelle Lawless Scholarship Fund which supports female Environmental Science majors.
Last year the program collected more than 200,000 pieces. In 2012, the goal is 300,000. Trash to Treasure is a proud participant in the program. You can drop off your items at T2T during regular business hours.
