If your family recycles like mine does, then anything resembling paper, plastic or metal goes into the appropriate recycling bin. However did you know you may be depositing products that cannot be recycled through typical processes? I am guilty of this — I had been mixing in kid food pouches with my regular plastics. Oops! A solution exists thanks to TerraCycle. It offers national programs (a.k.a Brigades®) to collect previously non-recyclable or hard to recycle waste like drink pouches, chip bags, and water filters. The waste is then made into new products ranging from recycled park benches to backpacks.

For nearly a decade, KMB has been hosting the annual Environmental Stewardship Awards as a way to recognize and celebrate the notable efforts within Martin County to promote environmental stewardship through education and action. But it was one group, in particular, that really stole the show. The crowd rose quickly in a standing ovation, complete with thundering applause, whistle blowing and napkin swinging as Bessey Creek Elementary School’s Team Green Recycle Buddies was announced as the winner in the youth and school category.

LEWISBURG -- Girl Scout Troop 60017 holds a check for $300, earned by spending 15 hours working on the project The Juice Pouch Brigade. The girls collected, emptied, counted, made posters, and shipped juice pouches to Terracycle. The troop choose to donate the amount they earned to Kelly Elementary School. This is an ongoing project that the girls will continue to work on. Donations of juice pouches are welcome. Every empty juice pouch is worth 2 cents. The girls did this project to earn their Bronze Award.

McLoughlin Elementary is starting a recycling program through a company called TerraCycle. With this program McLoughlin students can opt to recycle several different types of household materials with a goal of keeping these items out of the landfill and to raise money for the school.

I have been in love with Terracycle items for a LONG time now. They have been “in the works” since 2001, but major sales began in 2004, with items being sold at The Home Depot and WalMart in Canada. They made their way to the US in 2005 with fertilizer and plant food. They grew quickly, and in 2007 they started making the items that I have fallen in love with, recycled waste everyday use items, such as backpacks, binders, pencil cases and folders. In January of 2008, TerraCycle met with Kraft Foods and by February, Capri Sun signed on as the leading sponsor in the Drink Pouch Brigade, and this is where the items that I received for review come in.

Hi Tonda Families! It’s that time again… Terracycle Time! For those who are new to our school, let me explain. Terracycle is a recycling company that will “reward” us for recycling. We belong to 3 different “brigades”… Drink Pouches, Candy Wrappers and Bags (no cardboard candy boxes) and Lunchable containers. They accept ALL BRANDS from every brigade- even generic store brands. Three labeled bins are located in the cafeteria on the stage, for the children to put their items in after lunch. Please remind them to empty all food pieces and drink pouches as much as they can before placing them into their respective bins. Once we have enough of each, the items are shipped to Terracycle (free of charge), earning money for the school. Last year we were able to recycle enough from all of the brigades to collect $123! We generally receive $0.02-$0.05 for each item. It may not seem like a lot right now, but it can quickly add up. **New this year: we now need to send in at least 2000 drink pouches every 6 months to receive any money back (we have only until late December to send these in). PLEASE save all you can! Send them back with your child(ren) after a weekend of sporting events, scouts, parties etc. They DO NOT need to be completed washed out- just empty them as much as you can. This has been a great way to earn money for our school while teaching the children about the importance of recycling and saving the Earth

No one is quite sure who first discovered the cleaning method, but its effectiveness is indisputable: If one person uses a brush to swirl soapy water in the tray-cleaning bucket while another person plunges a dirty tray into the water, the tray will come out clean. The method is affectionately called “the swirly.” “The only days we can’t do it are nacho day and pasta day,” said Alexander Cohen, a fifth-grade Eco-Volunteer. Cleaning recyclable polystyrene trays at lunchtime is just one of the steps students, parent volunteers and staff at Bridge School have taken to promote recycling. What began as a parent-led initiative in which lunchtime recycling was done only on Fridays has evolved into a daily school-wide effort, with 90 student volunteers giving up recess time to help on a rotating basis.

For example, Pultyniewicz said, instead of buying individual juice boxes for your child, purchase one large recyclable container of juice and reuse a thermos daily. If you decide to buy individual boxes of juice, choose brands with packaging that can be recycled. Apart from the plastic straw, wax-covered paper juice boxes are now recyclable in Montgomery County (see attached .pdf file for a detailed list about what can and can't be recycled in Montgomery County). Foil juice boxes, although not recycled through the county, are collected at some area schools as a fundraiser via TerraCycle, a company that makes new items from waste products. Any of these choices is ecologically preferable to a week's worth of juice containers piling up in the trash.

THE TERRACYCLE RECYCLING PROGRAM FOR JUICE POUCHES EARNS SCHOOL A CASH REWARD. When students at St. Charles School see a certain juice pouch, they don’t just think “juice.” They also think about reducing school trash and bringing in 2 cents per juice pouch for their school. Special education teacher and Student Council advisor Jill Flemming also sees teachable math moments. Since this past September, the school has been sending Capri Sun juice pouches to TerraCycle. This school year, St. Charles students, who ended their school year Tuesday, recycled more than 11,000 juice bags, Flemming said Wednesday morning—11,072 to be exact. The recycling idea came, she said, when students were doing an annual walk in September against diabetes. The boxes of juice bags that the Student Council dispensed during the walk said, Flemming pointed out, “Recycle with TerraCycle.”

As residents prepare for Fourth of July and other summer parties, they have a new option for their non-recyclable trash: send it for free to TerraCycle to be, indeed, recycled. TerraCycle collects difficult-to-recycle food packaging such as Frito-Lay chip bags, Kraft Singles cheese packaging, Scott paper towel and napkin wrapping, and Solo plastic cups. Anyone can send in their used products and packaging to be upcycled and recycled. For every piece of packaging that TerraCycle receives, participants are awarded with two points, which can be put toward buying a specific charity gift or converted to money and donated to a charity of the participant’s choice.