People are encouraged to become "recycling hubs" as part of this year's Earth Day and Month celebrations. International recycling company TerraCycle is calling for Kiwis to serve as public drop-off points for recyclable materials.

Calling all environmentalist...Are you a keen recycler? Do you wonder what to do with those hard-to-recycle materials like yoghurt pouches, coffee capsules and toothpaste tubes? Ahead of Earth Day later this month community members are being sought to sign up as recycling hubs to deal with just those items which would otherwise end up in landfill. TerraCycle, an eco-friendly recycling company that has become a global leader in recycling typically non-recyclable waste, is behind the scheme to grow the public drop-off network. The network comprises all kinds of locations, including schools, sports clubs, community centres, libraries, offices, and individual homes. The waste products are then recycled or upcycled rather than being incinerated or ending up in landfill. Items are shredded and turned into plastic pellets which can be used to make new items including playground equipment, fitness equipment and outdoor furniture. There are 233 active participants in North Canterbury for recycling programmes and about 18 drop-off points, most of which are florists collecting for the Nespresso Coffee Capsules Programme. As well as coffee capsules, other programmes available in New Zealand the Fonterra Pouch Recycling Programme, the GLAD Food Storage Recycling Programme and the Oral Care Recycling programme sponsored by Colgate. The programmes then give back to communities through a points scheme, raising money for a chosen school or not-for-profit organisation. Globally, TerraCycle works with more than 110 or the world's largest consumer goods brands to collect 75 different waste streams, including coffee capsules, toothbrushes, chewing gum and even cigarette waste. It operates in 20 countries and has over 60 million people participating globally in its programmes to collect waste and has diverted almost 5 billion units of waste from landfill and paid more than $15 million to charities and schools worldwide. To learn more about TerraCycle or get involved, visit terracycle.com Northern Outlook_Apr 11

People are encouraged to become "recycling hubs" as part of this year's Earth Day and Month celebrations. International recycling company TerraCycle is calling for Kiwis to serve as public drop-off points for recyclable materials. TerraCycle runs free recycling programmes in New Zealand dealing with waste such as coffee capsules and yogurt pouches. People involved with its programmes normally collect recycling in their home, office or school, bit it also has a network of public drop-off points where anyone can leave appropriate items to be recycled. Earth Day is marked on April 22 while Earth Month runs throughout April. Go to terracycle.co.nz and search for the free recycling programmes for more information and to become a public drop-off point. Manukau Courier_Apr 10 (1)

Mountain View School in Mangere Bridge has a long-held enthusiasm for recycling. From food waste to rearranging rocks - if something is no longer useful, then they find another purpose for it. A quick tour of the school grounds with Principal Sue McLachlan is accompanied by a host of stories about the ways in which the students are taught to think about and value, their environment. It is no surprise then, to learn that from 1450 entrants, the students have been awarded Fonterra's 2016 Recycling Champions. For the past four years the school has been a recipient of the Fonterra Milk in Schools programme, as part of which they are taught to recycle the cardboard milk packs. The students had to collect all the empty containers, fold them in a special way, so any drops don't leak out, and stack them neatly for the milkman to collect. Initially the milkman nominates the best schools in his delivery area. Then the nominated schools create a video telling the story of their commitment to waste reduction, before the winner is chosen. At assembly on Thursday the 9th of March, the whole school was presented with a trophy by TerraCycle, and thirty students were chosen to attend an upcycling workshop. TerraCycle is a specialist recycling organisation which partners with businesses to create recycling solutions for waste that is not usually considered recyclable. For example, they have come up with a way to recycle cigarette butts into compost and plastic pellets. At Mountain View School, the students created coin pouches, tote bags, and tic-tac-toe sets out of old containers. With the help of some strong tape, Velcro dots and enthusiasm they created some bright, interesting and practical items from rubbish. Student Breeze Johnson is a milk monitor, which means she is one of the team who deliver milk around the school on a daily basis. She says recycling is "good, it keep my school clean. I enjoy making fun things." Onehunga Community News_Apr 7

Newtown School has a new Friendship Seat and it is made out of products that help people smile. The school won a park bench made out of recycled oral care waste as part of the recently wrapped Colgate Community Recycle Drive and chose to use it to make a Friendship Seat for students. A Friendship Seat would encourage new friendships around the school, year five student Estella War explained. "If you don't have anyone to play with you can sit down on it and if someone doesn't either or if a group doesn't they can pick you up from it and play with you," Estella said. Colgate and global recycling and upcycling pioneers, TerraCycle, created the Community Recycle Drive to call on New Zealand residents to recycle their used oral care items and raise funds for their local school, preschool, sporting club or community group. The drive is part of Oral Care Recycling Programme launched by Colgate and TerraCycle in October 2014, a recycling scheme in which Newtown School is an active collector. Newtown School was one of the top six collectors in the drive, collecting oral care waste such as toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and mouthwash bottles. As part of their prize, the students designed their own park bench made of oral care waste. "We believe it is important to do everything we can to care for our environment," said Newtown School teacher Tim Crawshaw. "What better way to manage our needed waste but to recycle it, rather than send it to landfill?"

Kaurilands School won the 2016 Community Recycle Drive. Student Nina, 8, designed and won the bench design competition. Western Leader_Kaurilands School_Mar 28  

It’s spring cleaning time—is your old car seat on the toss list? Maybe your little one’s outgrown it, or perhaps you want an upgrade. Whatever the case, we’ll trade ya! April 17–30, bring your used car seat to Target stores nationwide and trade it in for a coupon for 20% off any car seat in our stores or at Target.com, good through May 31. What happens to all those car seats we collect? We’re teaming up with our friends at TerraCycle to make sure they get recycled, or upcycled into new products. Through the partnership, we expect to keep more than 700,000 pounds of car seat materials out of landfills. “In honor of Earth Month, we wanted to make it easy for guests to do something positive for the planet and their communities,” says Jennifer Silberman, chief sustainability officer, Target. “We love this opportunity to give families an environmentally friendly way to dispose of unwanted car seats and get the new ones they need just in time for spring.” Can’t wait to score this deal? Start picking out your new car seat now. Check out a few of our guest-favorites below, and shop the full assortment here. Then, read up on these smart tips for getting your new car seat safely installed in your vehicle. Don’t miss out on the latest Target news and behind-the-scenes happenings! Subscribe to our bi weekly newsletter and get the top stories from A Bullseye View delivered straight to your inbox.

Recycling is a win-win situation. Not only are you helping save the planet, but you’re also clearing the clutter out from your life. How do you know you’re doing it right? From bottle caps to aerosol cans, here’s a look at some of the things you may not think to recycle – but actually can. 7. Coffee pods Those single-serve coffee pods are notoriously wasteful. On average, Australians use one a week each. Do your bit to help by gathering those used pods in a plastic bag and dropping them at your nearest Nespresso store. 10. Makeup When was the last time you cleaned out that storage area under your sink? We shudder to think how many cracked, expired, half-used beauty products we’d find under there. Enter TerraCycle, who’ve teamed up with L’Oreal Australia to set up the Beauty Products Recycling Program. Simply fill a box, go online and download a shipping label, that way you can print and post it for free to the local recycling depot. Check out other Terracycle programs, including the Oral Care Recycling Program, allowing you to recycle used toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and dental floss containers.

To coincide with the launch of its new ‘Little Yoghi’ range of coconut yoghurt pouches, Raglan Coconut Yoghurt has joined up with recycling pioneers TerraCycle to make the pouches nationally recyclable in New Zealand. Through the Little Yoghi Recycling Programme, New Zealanders simply collect pouches at home, work, school, or at their playgroup, and freepost them to TerraCycle in any used box. The pouch materials are then pelletised and can be used to make plastic goods such as park benches, watering cans and waste bins. Raglan Coconut Yoghurt has always endeavoured to use recyclable materials in the packaging for its full-size ‘Yoghi’ products. But when the Raglan-based coconut yoghurt brand launched the lunchbox-friendly Little Yoghis, the team realised they needed to find a sustainable solution for used pouches. “We’re very conscious of health and the environment, and this is reflected through our healthy, fresh products, our community sponsorships, and, of course, our focus on recycling,” says Tesh Randall, co-founder, Raglan Coconut Yoghurt. “As soon as we decided to launch the Little Yoghis, we knew we had to offer our customers an environmentally-friendly disposal option!” Although increasingly popular with food manufacturers and consumers alike, most pouch packaging is not yet recyclable through standard New Zealand council services. Jean Bailliard, General Manager for TerraCycle Australia and New Zealand, says the new nationwide recycling programme benefits not only the environment, but the community as well. “TerraCycle recycles the ‘unrecyclable’ – we look at waste solutions for items that are deemed difficult to recycle, such as yoghurt pouches,” he says. “Our recycling programmes are free to participate in and very user-friendly, and they also allow collectors to raise money for their local school or favourite charity.” Collectors will be awarded with two cents for every pouch they collect, and once they’ve collected $10 across any of TerraCycle’s programmes, they can donate the funds to their favourite charity or school. Visit www.terracycle.co.nz/little-yoghi to sign up and obtain further information on the programme. TerraCycle has already kept more than four billion pieces of food and beverage packaging and other waste from going to the landfill, and with its partners, donated over $15 million to charity and schools through its various programmes. TerraCycle is currently creating solutions for other difficult to recycle, but widely discarded, waste streams such as cigarettes and used chewing gum. For more information please contact: Tesh Randall, Raglan Coconut Yoghurt 021 261 5913 or tesh@raglancoconutyoghurt.co.nz Gemma Kaczerepa, PR & Marketing Manager at TerraCycle NZ +61 2 9357 7426 or gemma.kaczerepa@terracycle.com About Raglan Coconut Yoghurt Raglan Coconut Yoghurt is a Raglan, New Zealand-based brand that has become a familiar favourite in the coconut yoghurt market. Its yoghurts are full of probiotics, free from dairy, gluten, refined sugar, preservatives, nuts, gums and GMOs, and are paleo and beegan. Plus, they’re 100% locally produced in Raglan using honey from local beehives around Mt Karioi. Both Raglan Coconut Yoghurt’s full-size Yoghi products and Little Yoghi pouches come in varieties such as Natural Greek-Style, Mango & Turmeric and Blackcurrant & Heilala Vanilla, as well as a new Banana flavoured Little Yoghi. About TerraCycle TerraCycle, Inc. is an international recycling organisation that engages the community to collect ‘unrecyclable’ and difficult-to-recycle packaging and products, and turns them into innovative eco products. Founded in 2001, TerraCycle is the world’s leader in the collection and reuse of non-recyclable post-consumer waste. TerraCycle works with over 110 of the world’s largest consumer goods brands to collect 75 different waste streams, including coffee capsules, toothbrushes, chewing gum and even cigarette waste. TerraCycle operates in 20 countries and has over 60 million people participating globally in its programmes to collect waste. Internationally TerraCycle has diverted almost 5 billion units of waste from landfill and paid over $15 million to charities and schools.

Thank you to Jo from Fonterra who popped in to school for morning tea today and gave all of our students (and staff) a delicious yoghurt. TerraCycle and Fonterra have partnered to create the Fonterra Pouch Recycling Programme, a free recycling programme for Anchor Uno pouches, Fresh ‘n Fruity pouches or any other yoghurt pouches.