Teachers at Palmetto Elementary School used to see a lot of used drink pouches get thrown away.  Now they earn two cents for every one of those pouches they collect and return to a company called TerraCycle, who uses their non-recyclable waste to make affordable, eco-friendly products. This school year so far, the enthusiastic students at Palmetto have diverted over 15,500 pieces of waste from going into a landfill and this has earned their school over $300! “We found the Brigades to be a great opportunity to teach our students about recycling as well as help raise money for our school,” said Cindy Stavisky, the teacher who signed the school up for the program.  “With the money we earn, we are going to rebuild our Pre-K playground, making it more accessible for all students as well as an advanced educational environment!” The school is part of a free nationwide program called “Brigades®’ that pays schools and non-profits to collect non-recyclable waste that would otherwise go to landfill.  Now the programs are coming full circle back to Orlando through an exciting partnership with local WalmartÒ locations.

TerraCycle collects waste which is normally non-recyclable, such as candy wrappers, chip bags, and juice pouches, and makes hundreds of eco-friendly products with them. This year, almost 60 of the company’s products will be sold in evert Walmart store across the US for the month of April, exposing millions of customers to these unique items, and perhaps sparking some conversations about the life cycle of products and packaging.

With hundreds of students eating lunch every day, the teachers at Walker Elementary School used to see a lot of used drink pouches get thrown away. Now they earn two cents for every one of those pouches they collect and return to a company called, TerraCycle, who uses their non-recyclable waste to make affordable, eco-friendly products. This school year, the enthusiastic students at Walker have diverted nearly 4,000 pieces of waste from going into the landfills. “I have always been a big advocate of recycling and think this program is great.” said Lois Bradley, the P.E. teacher who signed the school up for the program. “I teach at a K-1 school that has snack each day.  As part of our policy individually wrapped items are required for parents to send in for snack.  I noticed that a lot of students were drinking Capri Sun drinks, and decided to sign up for the drink brigade.”

Starting April 5th, and for a limited time only during the month of April, about 60 TerraCycle items, including a bunch of brand new things never seen before, will be available in every single Wal-Mart across the country (3,500 locations) in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this year. The products will be sold right next to the original items they are made from. Kites made from Cheetos wrappers will be sold with bags of Frito-Lay chips and backpacks made from drink pouches will be sold next to boxes of Capri Sun. This will help educate consumers about resource conservation and give millions of students who participate in TerraCycle’s Brigades, an opportunity to see their collection efforts come to life!

Starting April 5th, and for a limited time only during April, nearly 60 TerraCycle products will be available in every Walmart across the country in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.  This will include lots of brand new items, which you can look at right now by reading this blog post.

In more efforts to divert trash from Conway’s city landfill, Julia Lee Moore elementary has enrolled in a program to reuse non-recyclables to create new, functional products — and make a little money while they are at it. Brigades, a nationwide program, pays schools and non-profit organizations 2 cents per juice pouch, which parents opt for in convenience, and turns them into a range of upcycled products. Upcycling is the process in which disposable or discarded items are repurposed to make them valuable or useful. TerraCycle’s hope is that with the program, waste will be eliminated and according to their Web site, used to create innovative products from “materials others deem garbage.”

During the StartingBloc Institute, one of the speakers we had the privilege of listening to was Tom Szaky, founder of TerraCycle. TerraCycle is a company that collects traditionally non-recyclable waste from people all across the country by paying a non-profit of the collecting person’s choice, 2 cents for each piece they collect and mail to the company. TerraCycle then uses the waste it receives from its Brigade members to make hundreds of eco-friendly products, i.e. “upcycling” the collected trash. Starting today, and until April 29th, about 60 “upcycled” TerraCycle items, including a bunch of brand new things never seen before, will be available in every single Wal-Mart across the country (3,500 locations) in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this year. The TerraCycle products will be sold right next to the original items they are made from. Kites made from Cheetos wrappers will be sold with bags of Frito-Lay chips and backpacks made from drink pouches will be sold next to boxes of Capri Sun, with the goal of helping educate consumers about resource conservation.

A whole bunch of brand new TerraCycle items will be available, during April for a limited time only, at every single Walmart across the country. Starting April 5th, nearly 60 TerraCycle products will be sold right next to the original items they were made from. Cheetos kites and tote bags made from Frito-Lay wrappers will be sold with bags of Frito-Lay chips, while notebooks and purses made out of skittles and M&M wrappers will be sold right next to bags of Mars Candy!

What have juice, cookies, or chips done for your schools, recently? Well, if your kids go to Garland Elementary, over the last year, the Parent Teacher Association has been collecting these empty bags, as well as Malt-O-Meal cereal bags, to fund projects like field trips. Melissa Skinner, this year’s Garland PTA president-elect, set up the recycling program after hearing about TerraCycle on a T.V. show highlighting Park City students who were recycling using a company based in Trenton, N.J. Skinner chose to focus on the following items: Nabisco cookie wrappers, Capri or Kool-Aid pouches, Frito-Lay chips bags and Malt-O-Meal cereal bags. So far, the school has collected 2,211 chip bags, 272 cookie wrappers, 2,222 drink pouches and after just starting the cereal bags in January, they have had 80 cereal bags. The total of $95.70 may not seem like much, but Skinner just sent another batch of bags to the company and will see another check at the end of April. Plus, she said TerraCycle pays the shipping expense. Skinner wants to get the word out, that anyone is encouraged to donate their used wrappers from these companies to Garland Elementary.

There’s nothing like shelf placement by a mass market retailer to bring an eco-friendly product from the fringe to the mainstream. When Target started carrying Method cleaning products in 2004, the biodegradable and nontoxic household cleansers stood out like a sore green thumb against the bleach- and chemical-filled landscape; now, every brand name from Clorox toWindex comes in a natural, plant-based version.