State Road Elementary School in Fenton earned nearly $100 just by recycling applesauce pouches. Students are making a difference by recycling their lunchtime waste with TerraCycle. Through participation in the recycling program, schools can turn their empty food packaging into cash.

As you look around online, you might notice a lot of references to TerraCycle’s Glue Crew program. It was sponsored by Elmer’s Glue and TerraCycle but has been suspended indefinitely. However, the recycling giant has new options for recycling glue containers and tape dispensers. You can place all of your waste in a Zero Waste Box, which you buy from the company and mail back when it is full.

New Orleans sells the cigarette butts to a company called TerraCycle, based in Trenton, New Jersey at $4 a pound. The company then goes to work processing the butts into useful things. The organic parts of the butts, the paper and tobacco, are turned into compost. The tobacco is not used to make more cigarettes.

Next week the students and teachers at Flanders Elementary School will unveil their new playground made from recycled oral care products after winning the TerraCycle® Recycled Playground Challenge. A ribbon cutting ceremony is planned at the Victoria Drive school at 10 a.m. Oct. 21. Flanders Elementary earned the highest total number of Playground Credits in the TerraCycle® Recycled Playground Challenge to become the grand prize winner of a playground made from toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes and floss containers.

At TerraCycle, I find myself in the center of this argument all the time. While we do work with major brands and manufacturers to create more circular solutions for their pre- and post-consumer packaging waste, I also view myself as an environmentalist. As an environmentalist, I believe that we should be seeking to maximize the recyclability of all packaging formats.

Hutchinson Middle School is one of the top collectors in the contest, hosted by TerraCycle ® and Capri Sun ®, and they are nearing the final level to win a new playground made from recycled drink pouches. The school has already collected 97,378 units with the hopes of being the first one to reach the 200,000 mark to be awarded the playground. The Capri Sun Milestone Program has five levels, rewarding collectors for reaching cumulative achievements in their collection, from 10,000 pouches to 200,000 pouches.

To reduce some of this waste, my company, TerraCycle, has a variety of recycling programs for commonly difficult-to-recycle performance snack packages. Fitness enthusiasts can now recycle their GU Energy Labs product packaging, Clif Bar and LARABAR wrappers, and Bear Naked granola pouches through our free recycling platforms.

Cedar Ridge Elementary School is in the lead in a contest to win a recycled playground. The Grovetown school is one of the top collectors in the Capri Sun Milestone Contest, put on by TerraCycle and Capri Sun. Students have collected and recycled 149,351 Capri Sun drink pouches from the lunchroom and home. The first school to collect 200,000 pouches will be awarded a new playground made from recycled drink pouches.

The Capri Sun Milestone Program is an extension of The Drink Pouch Brigade, a free national recycling program sponsored by TerraCycle and Capri Sun. Since 2007, thousands of Drink Pouch Brigade participants have kept almost 235 million drink pouches out of landfills and raised more than $4.5 million for charity. One of the fastest-growing green companies in the world, TerraCycle is an upcycling and recycling company that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging and products and repurposes the material into affordable, innovative products.