TerraCycle Triathlon of Trash Winner Gets Free UGA Semester Dedicated to the Late Jim McGown of Athens who passed away March 7 of this year. A Veteran of the U.S. Navy, and a tireless worker for the betterment of mankind whose labor and efforts were felt as far away as the Middle East! There is No Waste...Only Wasted Resources! Perhaps Earth Day Should be Every Day as we only have one Earth and without it we would be lost! St Gregory the Great Episcopal Church on the East Side has now earned almost $6,000 by keeping over 260,000 pieces of formally difficult to recycle trash out of the landfill. While Broward College near Ft. Lauderdale has now earned $15,000. Let's be honest how much sense does it make to bury unbiodegradable trash under ground from land we stole from Mother Nature? This is Varsity Recycling: TerraCycle.com is now accepting what we would normally think of as difficult or impossible to recycle. Things like Any & All: Chip Bags, Candy Wrappers, Glue Sticks, Sunscreen  and Lipstick Tubes, and now Any and All Cigarette Trash to include Stinky Cigarette Butts. Here is the Deal: From right now until August 15th, 2013 collect everything you can from the list below placing and separating each category in its own container such as a  Box, Bird Seed, or Pet Food Bag.  Feel free to get as large as you want but make sure a single average person can move the container around fairly easy through average doorways with the assistance of a hand truck. Items can be damp but not soaked and should be shaken or squeezed free of most food and liquid.(No Need To Scrub or Rinse Anything Out) Boxes and Packages will be opened for inspection. The winner with the most by weight wins a free Semester(In-State Tuition estimated to be $3,800)! Participants will meet for a Showdown on August 16th, 2013 at a location To Be Determined. For more information meet Captain PLaneT for a personal demonstration, description, and Q&A in the Odum School of Ecology Courtyard on Tuesday June 11th, 2013 at 4:00 pm! Or schedule me for a briefing at your location! If you are far away I can just email you all the UPS Shipping Labels for free shipping and TerraCycle will do the measuring. Just ask me for a label for specific brigades. The List:

1. Any & All Drink Pouches(Such as Capri-Sun, Kool-Aid to include the straws and straw wrappers)
2. Any & All Coffee Pouches(Such as Maxwell House, Equal Exchange Organic, and Starbucks)
3. Any & All Cookie and Cracker Wrappers(Such as Oreo and Keebler)
4. Any & All Energy or Breakfast Bar and Energy Food Wrappers(Such as Granola Bars, Breakfast Bars, Cliff Bars, Oddwalla Bars, Nut Bags, Kashi Bars)
5. Any & All Candy Wrappers(Such as M&Ms, Hershey, and Snickers) and Gum Wrappers(Such as Trident, Bubblicious, and Wrigley)
6. Any & All Chip and Salty Snack Bags(Such as Frito Lay, Pepperidge Farm, potato chip, crackers, pretzel, cheeto, nacho, and any that look and feel similar)
7. Any & All Lunch Kit Trays, Wrappers(such as Lunchables)
8. Any & All Dairy Tub Containers(Such as Stonyfield Farms, Chobani, Dannon) Butter Type Spread Containers (Such as Country Crock, Promise, and yes even the little baby single serve sizes along with baby coffee creamers) Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese, etc.
9. Sprout Brand Baby Food as well as Any & All Crushed Fruit Bags and Containers and Wrappers(GoGo Squeeze, Plum Organics, Gerber,  Chiquita, Ella's Kitchen, etc)
10. Any & All Cereal Bags(Such as Malt-O-Meal, Rice Crispies, and Honey Nut Cheerios)
11. Bear Naked Brand Granola and Cereal Product Wrappers
12. Any & All Corks Real and Fake Plastic from wine and other liquor bottles
13. Any & All Disposable Household Tape Dispensers (Such as Scotch Tape)
14. Any & All Home Storage Bags and Containers (such as Zip Lock Type Bags, sandwich bags, and temporary tupperware plastic containers)
15. Any & All Paper Towel and similar Paper Product Wrappers (Such as Scotts Paper Towels, Tissue Paper, Paper Napkins etc)
16. Any & All Tooth Paste Tubes, Dental Floss Devices, and used Toothbrushes (Such as Colgate, Crest, etc)
17. Any & All Glue Containers and Glue Sticks (Such as Elmer's)
18. Any & All Human Writing Instruments except Chalk and Crayons (Such as Used Up or Broken Pens, Sharpies, Markers, Highlighters, Magic Markers, and Mechanical Pencils, Wooden Pencils)
19. Any & All Beauty and Skin Care Product Tubes and Containers (Such as Aveeno and Aveda Skin Product Tubes, Neosporin Medicine Containers, Lip Stick Tubes, Cosmetic Cases,  Chap Stick Tubes, Shampoo Bottles, Deodorant Sticks and Sun Screen Tubes and Bottles)
20. Any & All Diaper Wrappers (such as Huggies, Pampers, g-Diaper and any sort of Baby Sanitation Wipe as well as Incontinence Pad Wrappers)
21. Any & All Cell Phones, MP3 players, Digital Cameras,  GPS Systems, Calculators, Printer and Toner Cartridges, and Laptop Computers including all cords and chargers
22. Any & All Cheese Wrappers (such as Kraft, Kroger, Sargento)
23. Any & All Tortilla, Tostada & Bread Wrappers (such as Mission Tortillas)
24. Any and All Home Cleaning Containers and Items (such as Method Packs, Windex, Pledge, Ajax, and Toilet Brushes, Tubes, Pistol Squeezers)
25. Any and All #5 & #6 disposable plastic drinking cup (Solo Cups)
26. Any and All Laundry and Dish Wash Detergent Briquette Bags (Dropps, Tide, Cascade)
27. Any and All Wine Pouches
28. Any and All Hummus Products (like Athenos Hummus)
29. Any and All Shoes
30. Any and All Cigarette & Cigar Waste including all the ashes, unburnt tobacco, filter stubs, plastic outer wrap, aluminum paper inner wrap. (Please place in an airtight plastic bag inside the outer package)

Recycling has been one of the biggest movements in response to pollution, and dealing with the huge amounts of waste produced by today’s society. Of the biggest problems with recycling is that there are a lot of plastics, and other products that aren’t recyclable yet. A lot of progress has happened recently in recycling abilities, but there are many products and luxuries that we use today that come in packaging that isn’t easily recycled. This is where the company Terracycle comes in. Terracycle is a company that collects hard to recycle wastes and either recycles the materials, or upcylces them for new purposes.

Dropps Fabric Softener Pacs are also eco-friendly, from formula to packaging. The formula, created from a clay material, is naturally formed from a chemical alteration of volcanic ash that is enclosed in an energy-efficient, dissolvable pac. The packaging, biodegradable and safe in all septic tanks, is part of a revolutionary recycling solution resulting from a partnership between Dropps and TerraCycle, the international upcycling enthusiast.

Years before there were Pods, there were Dropps. Back in 2005, Jonathan Propper, CEO of Cot’n Wash Inc., Philadelphia, listened to his wife complain about lugging laundry detergent bottles and measuring cups up and down basement steps. He knew he could find an easier way. Propper’s “Aha!” moment led to the development of Dropps Laundry Pacs and the birth of an entirely new laundry category.

Hey you! That’s not how it’s spelled is it? What am I talking about? You wonder.. What are Dropps? You ask !… Well, they are pre-measured, compact (6x concentrated) laundry detergent in these convenient, easy to use, dissolvable detergent packets that you throw into your Washer and go. Sweet right? Yeah, they sure are. There’s no mess, no heavy jug to LUG around, measuring and reading the back to get the amount just right (different detergents with different rules) plus they are Eco friendly, which in my opinion is the #1 reason why I even wanted to try them, well, not the only reason, but the fact that Dropps is greener for the planet, it’s formula has been approved by the EPA’s Design for Environment (DfE) program, it recognizes formulas with safer chemistry.

Spring is here, and with it comes the task of spring cleaning. This can mean emptying closets, de-cluttering your home, or ridding the air of any germs. Whatever you choose, the objective is the same: to live clean. Traditional standard cleaners contain harsh chemicals that can be hazardous so to keep them out of your home, you can make your own green cleaners by using inexpensive ingredients. Here is some information that may help you to weigh the opposing benefits and risks:

In my house the laundry never ends. There are only three people in my house yet somehow I always have a load in the washing machine. It is a never ending chore that according to my husband only I am qualified to do.

Social media is popular for various reasons including the fact that it’s easy to reach people and that it’s free. Media such as advertising and marketing often is not free, so for many companies it is hard, if not impossible, to find room in the budget. For companies who don’t mind taking a leap of faith, there’s another option, one that TerraCycle relies heavily upon: owned media. I say “leap of faith” because sometimes you have to shell out some cash to create the owned media, and then be patient and wait for the fruit of your efforts to materialize. Here at TerraCycle, we just started a bi-weekly podcast that documents eco-tips, eco-news, and features interviews with key players from our partners such as Elmer’s, Dropps, and Garnier as well as leading voices from the sustainable industry.

In choosing a standard cleaner versus a green cleaner, sometimes it seems as if you have to make a sacrifice. Choose a green cleaner, and it seems to not be quite as effective and often cost more off the shelf. Choose a standard cleaner, and you confront the hazards of harsh chemicals in your home and the headaches that the cleaning agents and scents bring. How are you supposed to choose what’s best for your child with all these opposing benefits and risks? There are a few things you should know.