Many businesses are incorporating upcycling as a part of their efforts to have a more green/sustainable business model. Honest Tea and Clif Bar are two companies that utilize the services of TerraCycle in an effort to provide upcycling options for their consumers. TerraCycle offers a range of recycling and upcycling programs for companies and individual consumers to participate in. Honest Tea’s Honest Kids drink pouches are part of a program in which a consumer can send the pouches to Terra Cycle, where they will be cleaned, sanitized and used for other purposes, such as being sewn into backpacks. Clif Bar is part of a similar program, where the consumer can send their used granola bar wrappers (and other Clif Bar product containers) to TerraCycle for free to be repurposed into different products, like shoes or shower curtains. Both of these programs offer incentives for the consumers, which encourages them to continue participating.

From cigarette buts to flip-flops, Tom Szaky of TerraCycle believes everything can be recyclable. In Tom Szaky’s vision of the new economy, nothing is garbage. Not cigarette butts. Not dirty diapers. Not even used tampons.

In Tom Szaky’s vision of the new economy, nothing is garbage. Not cigarette butts. Not dirty diapers. Not even used tampons.

Virtually everything you find on store shelves uses these materials in some form, and yet many of them are unrecyclable either because of their design or because the combination of materials used in their manufacturing makes them difficult to break down. But one company is steadily proving that it’s possible to recycle virtually everything we discard on a daily basis.

Honest Tea was a founding member of the Drink Pouch Brigade®, a program launched in 2007 with TerraCycle® to recycle and ‘upcycle’ drink pouches. The program has collected more than 182 million drink pouches.

Do not include drink "pouches" with your bottles and cans; drink pouches can be recycled through Terracycle.

A juice package is often too convenient to pass up, but what happens after the slurping has stopped? Honest Kids and TerraCycle estimate that up to 1 million drink pouches end up in landfills each year

For example, the company…

• serves as a founding member of the TerraCycle Drink Pouch Brigade, which has collected nearly 183 million drink pouches since its inception in 2007.

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.