Many major brands are getting on board with upcycling.  Scott tissue and Huggies are sponsoring programs to collect plastic packaging waste from paper products and diapers. And since most oral hygiene products aren’t recyclable, Colgate and TerraCycle have partnered to collect used toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.

EAST AMWELL TWP. — Where most people see trash, the township school’s Environmental Club sees cash. That has won $50,000 for the school, the top prize in a TerraCycle-Walmart contest for New Jersey public schools. It did so by blitzing TerraCycle with 52,640 plastic wrappers and containers during the two-and-a-half-month contest. “You can’t get much greener than this!” exclaimed the club’s adviser, fifth-grade language arts and science teacher Sharon Ernst. It all started in 2008 with Ernst casting about for a way to raise money for an Environmental Club for fourth- and fifth-graders. She wanted to do something applicable to stewardship, which ruled out fundraisers such as bake sales. She considered selling seeds, then a parent mentioned TerraCycle, which pays nonprofit groups that send it hard-to-recycle items for reuse or recycling. Since then, the club has gathered, for instance, more than 30,000 empty Capri Sun containers. The money was spent on plants that allow Ernst to raise Monarch butterflies. She uses the pollinators in her lessons on ecosystems.

EAST AMWELL TWP. — Where most people see trash, the township school’s Environmental Club sees cash. That has won $50,000 for the school, the top prize in a TerraCycle-Walmart contest for New Jersey public schools. It did so by blitzing TerraCycle with 52,640 plastic wrappers and containers during the two-and-a-half-month contest. “You can’t get much greener than this!” exclaimed the club’s adviser, fifth-grade language arts and science teacher Sharon Ernst. It all started in 2008 with Ernst casting about for a way to raise money for an Environmental Club for fourth- and fifth-graders. She wanted to do something applicable to stewardship, which ruled out fundraisers such as bake sales. She considered selling seeds, then a parent mentioned TerraCycle, which pays nonprofit groups that send it hard-to-recycle items for reuse or recycling.

Many major brands are getting on board with upcycling.  Scott tissue and Huggies are sponsoring programs to collect plastic packaging waste from paper products and diapers. And since most oral hygiene products aren’t recyclable, Colgate and TerraCycle have partnered to collect used toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.

Get paid to recycle. Start a drive at your school to collect yogurt containers, drink pouches, chip, cookie and candy packages, plus Scott and Huggies wrappers and Elmer’s glue sticks and bottles. The school can earn 2 cents per piece of packaging (terracycle.net/brigades).

Saintly Recyclers mail in their trash. Terracycle.net will recycle (usually postage is free) and donate to charity your candy wrappers, yogurt cups, drink pouches, cookie wrappers, Flavia Freshpacks, Frito-Lay chip bags, energy and granola bar wrappers, Bear Naked wrappers, Kashi packages, cell phones, Huggies and Scott tissue wrappers, Aveno tubes, Scotch tape dispensers, corks, cereal bags, Sharpies and Papermate writing instruments, Neosporin tubes, coffee bags, lunch kits (like Lunchables), Colgate tubes and packaging, Ziploc bags and containers, Inkjet cartridges, and Sprout and Revolutions food containers. Preserveproducts.com recycles your No. 5 plastics (same company that has the receptacles at Whole Foods) and water filters into toothbrushes and razors.

Do you remember our last post about TerraCycle called Making Trash Green? You should definitely check it out if you didn't already read it. Basically, schools, churches and groups of all kinds form a brigade and start collecting! There are brigades for drink pouches, Bear Naked, Huggies, and Ziploc bags- to name a few. You simply collect and send- then TerraCycle makes a donation to your non-profit or a charity of your choice. TerraCycle then takes the trash and makes it into something not-so-trashy.

If you don't know who TerraCycle is, they are an awesome company that is doing their part for the earth and non-profit organizations. They collect certain trash items from groups who save and save them. TerraCycle makes new products our of the trash AND pays the groups who collect the trash. It's a win-win situation!

TerraCycle is an excellent fundraising program that non-profit organizations can sign up to participate in.  If your school is interested in participating log onto http://www.terracycle.net/ there you will find out how to sign up for the program and how to join the different brigades (items you can collect).  TerraCycle pays out $.02 (a few brigades are higher valued but more difficult to collect) for each piece collected, your non-profit sends in their collected items free of charge!  All they need to do is log into their account and print off a shipping label, tape up the box and take it to their local UPS shipping store!  TerraCycle will send out checks in December and June.

We all shop for groceries, sometimes two or three times a week –- or more. Now turn those shopping trips into easy cash for your school, and encourage friends to do the same! Just look for the Box Tops logo on hundreds of products like Cheerios®, Hamburger Helper® and Kleenex®, in almost every aisle of the store. All you need to do is clip and send them to your school’s Box Tops coordinator —- each one is worth 10¢ for your school.