A Mississauga school is recycling to win a garden and cash for charity, and students need your help.
St. Jude’s Academy, a private school for junior kindergarten to Grade 12, is in the Meadowvale area on Torquay Mews.
The school is on the national leaderboard to win the top prize of a garden made from 100 per cent recycled material through the third-annual Febreze Frenzy recycling contest.
This year's contest is the biggest in TerraCycle Canada’s history, with $8,650 of charity donations being shared among the top ten winners.
Participants must send in as many units of air and home care waste, such as trigger heads from spray bottles, as possible before May 31.
Two points are awarded for each item sent to TerraCycle.
The contest is part of TerraCycle and Febreze's air and home care recycling program. The free, national initiative allows for any brand of air-freshener cartridge or home-cleaning packaging to be recycled.
Anyone in Canada can sign up to take part.
Rochelle Archibald is the founder and executive director at A Greener Future, an organization that is all about picking up junk for cleaner waterways and lakes.
Rochelle is the quintessential example of somebody who turned her hobby into a business or, in her case, a not-for-profit. Even on trips for work in her previous employment, Rochelle would spend her free time picking up litter and post the cleanup results on social media where she received support and encouragement. Eventually, when her work contract came to an end, Rochelle decided to follow her passion for cleaning up into an not-for-profit adventure instead. Soon enough, A Greener Future gained sponsors and became incorporated, growing well enough to gain cleanup projects in Portugal, Spain, The Bahamas, The United States and, of course, Canada.
We’ve also created two flagship events that help define what
A Greener Future is all about. We recently ran our third annual
Butt Blitz, which is a Canada-wide cigarette butt cleanup. We have volunteer coordinators in cities coast to coast that rally volunteers to pick up butts, counting as they go, and then send them all into
TerraCycle to be recycled. This year we picked up a staggering 186,000 cigarette butts and handed out 520 pocket ashtrays! By cleaning up butts already on the ground and raising awareness of the damage they cause we hope that eventually smokers will realize the environmental and health concerns related to cigarette butt litter.
The Butt Blitz of 2017 is underway and downtown businesses are chipping in.
The Butt Blitz aims to remove the thousands of cigarette butts that are thrown onto downtown Barrie streets every day by having folks put them in one of the 23 cigarette containers throughout the area. A press conference was organized by the Downtown Barrie BIA Thursday at ZuZu Fashion Boutique.
ZuZu owner Tracey Baker was excited to be a part of the campaign to clean up downtown as her shop has been a mainstay for the last two years at 25 Dunlop Street East. Not only a member of the Downtown Barrie BIA, Baker is also very conscience of the environment and wants the city to be a leader in that concern.
“This an environmental issue that maybe people don’t think about too often,” said Baker. “4.5 trillion butts are discarded annually on our planet and the majority of those end up in lakes and streams. One cigarette butt in one litre of water can kill one fish. That’s horrifying when you look at the numbers that are polluting the waters, and we are Barrie, we’re known for our beautiful bay.”
The campaign was spearheaded by A Greener Future which is a Canadian environmentally-directed non-profit that creates events to help clean up the planet. The Butt Blitz is a nationwide event and Barrie’s leg starts May 6 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. where Baker has asked shop-owners and anyone in downtown to clean up the space around them and put the butts in plastic bags where they’ll be picked up near the end of the day. While the Blitz takes place Saturday, Baker reminds everyone they can start now and keep going always.
“The Terracycle receptacles are up and will be emptied periodically from now till forever,” said Baker. “When they’re emptied they are sent to Terracycle where the butts are actually recycled into making shipping pallets. It’s a great way to not just keep the city clean but also the environment. We’ve already seen that it works as we have had three full bags already. Approximately 750 butts per bag multiply that by the 23 containers and we are really making a dent in the waste.”
The city of Barrie purchased the 23 containers and the BIA installed them. Tom Ambreau is with the BIA and loves that the city has taken a course of action to help the environment. Ambreau also stresses the other obvious reason to clean up the butts as beautifying the city is important too.
“The environmental concern is key here and we have to take care of our future,” said Ambreau. "But another factor is the mess. How many times do you walk downtown and see all the cigarette butts lying around and hate the mess? With our patio season coming, it will be nice to get the area totally ready for hanging out and enjoying our downtown.”
People can head over to ZuZu’z today to pick up the items needed for Saturday’s But Blitz. For more information on the campaign, check the
website. For more information on the Butt Blitz and where you can find the receptacles, check the Downtown Barrie BIA
website.
Volunteers are coming together to clean up the streets in the Butt Blitz.
This is the first year Vernon will be participating in the Canada wide initiative to clean up communities and raise awareness about the impact of cigarette butts.
“They pollute our environment, contaminate water and soil, poison wildlife and children and start a large number of wildfires. All of these things cost millions of taxpayer dollars to mitigate,” said Jack Elliman, a local organizer.
The event starts in the park next to the Greyhound depot at 10 a.m. and end at 4:20 p.m. at the skateboard park at Polson Park.
“As we move along we will be counting the butts we collect and announcing the grand gross total at the end of the day,” said Elliman.
“All of the collected butts will then be sent to Terracycle for recycling and redeemed for Terracycle points. The more butts we collect the more money we earn for charity.”
The event is organized by A Greener Future in partnership with
www.BrainGarden.ca
L’école Paul-VI est en compétition pour gagner une table de pique-nique fabriquée avec des gourdes-collation grâce au concours «À vos marques, prêt, GoGo!». Le concours est géré par GoGo squeeZ, la marque des gourdes de compote de fruits, et de l’entreprise de recyclage, TerraCycle.
L’école Paul-VI espère recueillir le plus de déchets de gourdes-collation, y compris les gourdes de compote et leurs bouchons en plastique, avant le 31 mai. Les écoles reçoivent un point pour chaque gourde-collation envoyée à TerraCycle pour être recyclée, et un point pour chaque vote reçu sur la page du concours. La table de pique-nique sera faite avec les déchets collectés par le programme de recyclage des gourdes-collation, un programme gratuit géré par GoGo squeeZ et TerraCycle.
« En tant qu'enseignante de l'école primaire Paul-VI à Laval, j'ai implanté la collecte car je voyais les élèves en utiliser chaque jour, » dit Lucie Frenette, enseignante à l’école Paul-VI. « En expliquant le bien-fondé de l'entreprise, c'est-à-dire, recycler, moins polluer et obtenir des récompenses. Nous nous sommes tous investis dans ce projet. »
« Depuis deux ans, avec l'aide de l'équipe-école et des 330 élèves, nous collectons tous les types de gourdes-collation à l'école. Jusqu'à ce jour, nous avons recueilli 9 500 gourdes! » Frenette continue. « Nous sommes heureux d'aider à diminuer les déchets et très fiers de ce projet. »
Le programme de recyclage des gourdes-collation a récemment surpassé un jalon national de plus de 315 000 unités collectées et près de 7 000 dollars recueillis pour des organismes de bienfaisance. Le programme de recyclage est une activité continue, ouverte à toute personne, famille, école ou organisme. Pour chaque morceau de déchets envoyé avec une étiquette d'expédition prépayée, les participants gagnent des points qui peuvent être traduits en des dons à l'école ou à l'organisme de bienfaisance de leur choix. Pour en savoir plus sur le programme, visitez
http://www.terracycle.ca/fr-CA/brigades/gogo-squeez-brigade.
Rosedale Public School in Sarnia is participating in a nation-wide recycling contest hoping to win the grand prize of a picnic table made from recycled snack packaging waste.
Since March, students have been sending snack pouches to be recycled and submitting daily votes for their school. Now, the school sits 14th in the running to win the grand prize.
Rosedale Public School hopes to collect the most snack pouch waste, including the flexible pouches and plastic caps, before May 31st.
The contest is put on by TerraCycle, a recycling company that takes difficult-to-recycle packaging and turns it into innovative products and Materne, the creators of GoGo squeeZ, a squeezable applesauce sold in plastic pouches.
Schools earn one point for each GoGo squeeZ pouch sent to TerraCycle for recycling and one point for each vote received on the online contest page.
Anyone wanting to support Rosedale’s efforts can go online and vote for the school by following
this link.
The contest is part of the GoGo squeeZ snack pouch recycling program which has collected over 315,000 units and raised nearly $7,000 for charity nation-wide.
The program is ongoing and open to any individual, family, school or community group. For each piece of waste sent in using a pre-paid shipping label, participants earn points that can be translated into charitable prizes or cash donations to the school or charity of their choice.
More information about the program can be found on
TerraCycles’ website.
Goodfellow Public School students are learning it pays to recycle. Literally.
Three years ago, the school started an intricate recycling program through TerraCycle, which pays two cents for every plastic lunch snack container collected.
The students must separate the cardboard from the plastic, and also recycle cereal bags and squeeze snack containers for products like applesauce.
Now the school is in the running to win $3,200 through TerraCycle’s inaugural Collection Craze recycling contest.
“We started the recycling club three years ago,” Grade 3 French Immersion teacher Alexandra Brand said. “All ages are in the club, but my students run it.”TerraCycle recycles and upcycles waste instead of incinerating or landfilling it. An example is purses made out of drinking box containers.
The students give strict instructions to other classrooms for sorting the waste, which doesn’t go into the regular blue bins.
“I really like doing the TerraCycle program. We go in front of other classes and tell them to put the cap onto their squeeze containers,” student Sam Takacs said. “Even the Grade 8s.”
Charlie Matheson said if students forget to put the lid back on, fruit flies can gather.
She also doesn't like it when people don't rinse their Schneider's Lunch Mate containers, leaving cheese or sauce behind.
While it can be a smelly job, she enjoys the work.
"I like doing TerraCycle because I'm helping to make the world a better place and raising money for the school," Donnell Richards said.
In the three years of the program, the club has raised $456.18 from recycling.
The club has donated $200 to Books with No Bounds, a charitable organization created by a 13-year-old Oakville girl to provide resources to First Nations communities.
“The club decides where the money goes,” Brand said. “In social studies, we learned about early Canadian history, which is where the First Nations idea came from.”
The rest of the money reimbursed goes to Goodfellow Public School, and the club can earmark where it's spent.
The school has until May 31 to collect containers and public votes for the Collection Craze contest. Votes can be logged from the public at the TerraCycle website.
Jamieson Elementary in Ohsweken is competing to win a share of $3,200 through the inaugural “Collection Craze” courtesy of Schneiders Lunchmate, and recycling company TerraCycle.
The school is competing to collect the most lunch kit waste, including plastic trays, film, and content packaging, sent to TerraCycle for recycling before May 31. The top 10 collecting schools will win a share of $3,200 in TerraCycle points that are redeemable for cash payment to an organization or school of their choice.
Schools earn one Lunchmate Credit for each shipment of lunch kit waste, including plastic trays, film, and content packaging, sent to TerraCycle for recycling, and one credit for every online vote cast for the school at
http://www.terracycle.ca/en-CA/contests/schneiders-lunchmate-collection-craze by May 31.
During the “Collection Craze” contest period, participating schools also have the opportunity to win an extra $1,000 by entering a photo submission sweepstakes draw. All photos must be submitted via TerraCycle’s sweepstakes form.
The first annual “Collection Craze” launched April 1 specifically for schools throughout Canada. The Schneiders Lunchmate Recycling Program recently hit a nationwide milestone of nearly 500,000 units collected and more than $10,000 dollars raised for charity.
The Schneiders Lunchmate Recycling Program is an ongoing activity, open to any individual, family, school or community group. For each piece of waste sent in using a pre-paid shipping label, participants earn points that can be translated into charitable prizes or cash donations to the school or charity of their choice.
Northern Sliders, of Val Caron, are competing to win a share of $3,200 through the inaugural Collection Craze, courtesy of Schneiders Lunchmate, and recycling pioneer TerraCycle.
Northern Sliders are competing to collect the most lunch kit waste, including plastic trays, film, and content packaging, sent to TerraCycle for recycling before May 31.
The top 10 collecting schools will win a share of $3,200 in TerraCycle points that are redeemable for cash payment to an organization or school of their choice.
During the contest period, participating schools also have the opportunity to win an extra $1,000 by entering a photo submission sweepstakes draw. All photos must be submitted via TerraCycle’s sweepstakes form.
The first annual Collection Craze launched April 1 specifically for schools throughout Canada. The Schneiders Lunchmate Recycling Program recently hit a nationwide milestone of nearly 500,000 units collected and over $10,000 dollars raised for charity.
The Schneiders Lunchmate recycling program is an ongoing activity, open to any individual, family, school or community group. For each piece of waste sent in using a pre-paid shipping label, participants earn points that can be translated into charitable prizes or cash donations to the school or charity of their choice.
To learn more about the program, please visit
http://www.terracycle.ca/en-CA/brigades/schneiders-r-lunchmate-r-brigade-r.
