In two years, Ms. Peck and the students of Douglas Elementary School have recycled more than 55,000 drink pouches through a nationwide recycling program run by TerraCycle Inc. In return the school has received $1,105 for enrichment programs, and the students have caught the recycling bug.
Vicky Peck has a nickname some might find not so flattering, but she loves it when kids call her the "juice pouch lady" because it means they're thinking about recycling. And getting kids to think about recycling is the first step.
In two years, Ms. Peck and the students of Douglas Elementary School have recycled more than 55,000 drink pouches through a nationwide recycling program run by TerraCycle Inc. In return, the school has received $1,105 for enrichment programs, and the students have caught the recycling bug.
"They took to it unbelievably quickly, and this is why the whole thing should start with children," says Ms. Peck. "My thing was to get recycling started because you would be amazed how many kids don't do recycling at home."
Douglas Elementary is one of about 45,000 schools nationwide - and one of about 360 schools in Massachusetts - that collect drink pouches for recycling by TerraCycle Inc. of Trenton, N.J.
Drink pouches, made of aluminum and plastic, were just thrown away until TerraCycle began recycling them in 2007 in partnership with Honest Tea, maker of Honest Kids juice drink pouches. Then things really took off in 2008 when TerraCycle joined up with Kraft Foods to recycle its popular Capri Sun pouches, along with other drink pouches. Since then, more than 100 billion pouches have been collected in the U.S. and "upcycled," or made into, backpacks, pencil cases, lunch bags and binders, plastic lumber and paving stones.
As an incentive, TerraCycle donates 2 cents per pouch to a nonprofit selected by each school's recycling team. Often the recipient is the parent/teacher organization at the collecting school. So far, TerraCycle has given $2.8 million to schools and charities, with one top-earning school earning $4,000.
"The whole community can get involved and help out the local school," says Stacey Cusack, TerraCycle public relations manager.
At Sutton Elementary, money raised from juice pouches bought a digital video camera for use in classrooms and will soon purchase some fun equipment for gym class. Since 2009, the school has collected more than 43,000 pouches and earned $848.
The money is great, but volunteers say the other big benefit is teaching kids about recycling.
Eight-year-old Sydney Leanna of Sturbridge has become a recycling advocate at Burgess Elementary, reminding kids to recycle drink pouches instead of throwing them away. Every day after school, her mom finds a couple of drink pouches in Sydney's backpack that the third-grader found here and there.
For her mother, collecting drink pouches is a convenient way to fit in school volunteering around her full-time work schedule. Kim Leanna and six other moms, along with their kids, rotate recycling duty, donning gloves to empty the cafeteria bin once a week and pack the pouches in boxes for mailing. Since 2009, they have collected more than 70,000 pouches and earned $1,398 for a school playground fund.
Kim Leanna hopes to teach the fifth- and sixth-grade students how to run the drink pouch recycling program, freeing up her and other moms to introduce new recycling programs for yogurt and personal care containers at the school.
"It's good exposure for kids because they're learning about recycling and upcycling," says Ms. Leanna.
Rutland teacher Ericka Humphrey and her second-grade students were in the middle of an environmental science unit when she first heard about TerraCycle's drink pouch recycling program two years ago. It was a perfect way to mesh what the kids were learning with a hands-on project.
"I told my students we can help the earth and help the school at the same time," says Ms. Humphrey. She and the students at Naquag Elementary and Glenwood Elementary have collected about 62,700 pouches to earn $1,256 for the schools since 2009. "I think it shows that a small step really does add up."
Ms. Peck of Douglas says getting started was pretty easy: She decorated a trash can with juice pouches and made a poster for the cafeteria, then she visited each classroom to drop off a collection bucket and explain the plan to the kids. To bring it full circle, she showed the kids the backpacks and pencil cases that are made from the used juice pouches.
At first, TerraCycle used the juice pouches as-is to make usable items such as backpacks. Now some of the pouches are shredded and melted to make pellets to be made into other items such as paving stones and plastic lumber, says Ms. Cusack.
Recycling all types of drink pouches - not just Capri Sun - is TerraCycle's most popular recycling project, but the company also has school programs to collect other hard-to-recycle types of packaging, such as string cheese wrappers and Lunchables and GoGo SqueeZ apple sauce packages. TerraCycle, which began in 2001 selling plant food made from worm waste, now collects 40 different kinds of used packaging for upcycling, including chip bags and candy wrappers.
TerraCycle has tried to make it easier for volunteers by no longer requiring that the drink pouches be cleaned and counted before mailing - that was messy and a lot of work. Nowadays, volunteers just need to squeeze out all the liquid and remove the straws before filling a box to mail to the New Jersey company using a prepaid mailing label.
"It's definitely a labor of love - and to imagine we've saved all this from a landfill," says Ms. Peck. "It's a good thing."
This year, bringing green into the fall and winter is easy. While packing lunches as kids head back to school, options for staying eco-friendly and keeping lunch tasty are at your fingertips.
TerraCycle, a pioneering recycling and upcycling company, offers eco-friendly, upcycled and recycled lunchboxes as well as a way to earn money by collecting non-recyclable food packaging such as cookies, chips, and juice pouches.
This year, bringing green into the fall and winter is easy. While packing lunches as kids head back to school, options for staying eco-friendly and keeping lunch tasty are at your fingertips.
TerraCycle, a pioneering recycling and upcycling company, offers eco-friendly, upcycled and recycled lunchboxes as well as a way to earn money by collecting non-recyclable food packaging such as cookies, chips, and juice pouches.
Once they're done, students can make their own environmental efforts by joining a Brigade, collecting their wrappers and sending them in to TerraCycle to earn money for their school. In addition to the lunchboxes mentioned above, TerraCycle turns the wrappers into eco-friendly backpacks, pencils and notebooks for students to enjoy.
This year, bringing green into the fall and winter is easy. While packing lunches for kids as they head back to school, options for staying eco-friendly and keeping lunch tasty are at your fingertips. TerraCycle, a pioneering recycling and upcycling company, offers eco-friendly, upcycled and recycled lunchboxes as well as a way to earn money by collecting non-recyclable food packaging such as cookies, chips, and juice pouches.
