So much more than what goes in your neighborhood bin can be recycled.  For example, my J&J location has on-site collections for batteries, and through a partnership with TerraCycle®, there are collection boxes for plastic toiletries bottles, small electronics, and writing utensils.  My son’s school has a collection for used foil juice packs.  A local organic market is runs a denim collection event to recycle old jeans into home insulation.  Even consigning (or donating) your kids’ outgrown clothes and toys can count as recycling.

Not one Frito Lay bag, big or small, goes to waste after lunch, when students deposit their empty bags to be counted and packaged in packs of 25. The school turns that trash into cash, participating in a Terracycle program called the Snack Bag Brigade that recycles those bags into usable products.

At the behest of a group of Girl Scouts, the Schoolcraft Community Schools Board of Education endorsed a recycling program at its four school buildings. Toni Rafferty, area Girl Scout manager, was joined by five Schoolcraft Elementary students at the board’s Oct. 13 meeting. The students – second graders Jozie Rafferty and Abby Hulinek, and fourth graders Carissa Riber, Sara Harington and Haley Earls – sought the board’s backing for an in-building recycling program that centers primarily on drink pouches and juice boxes.

In honor of America Recycles Day (sponsored by Keep America Beautiful), here are eight projects from around the globe that may spark your own your own recycling innovations. Terracycle offers ways to recycle previously non-recyclable or difficult-to-recycle waste, like juice pouches, tape dispensers, cosmetics packaging and more.

Almost immediately after opening Copper River’s doors, Weigand partnered with a similarly minded local environmentalist, Tom Szarky, garbage mogul, former Princeton student and founder of TerraCycle Outsmart Waste (teracycle.com)—to propagate Beauty Brigade, a program designed to facilitate the recycling of cosmetic items that are typically thrown away, such as foundation casings, lip balm tubes, eyeliner pencils and lotion bottles. The facility operates several Beauty Brigade recycling containers on its property.

The holidays are here, which means the kids will be home from school, extended family will be coming to town, and parents will be pulling out all the stops to ensure all goes smoothly (it doesn’t hurt to dream, right?). There is no better time to get organized, as it will help reduce stress and keep the peace. Test your pens and dispose of any used up or faulty members. Send them to a recycling program like TerraCycle that takes old pens, pencils, highlighters, and markers and converts them into recycled materials and products.

Broward College has ambitious goal for its recycling program. Broward College wants your empty juice pouches, broken printers and pens that have run out of ink — all unrecyclable items that can be used in its Terracycle program. Based at the South Campus in Pembroke Pines, Terracycle collects a laundry list of items that are later turned into new products, including purses, toys and picture frames.

BelovED Community Charter School in Jersey City, was the recipient of a new playground made from toothbrushes, toothpaste containers and other oral care waste. This playground worth $40,000 was made possible through Colgate, Shoprite, and TerraCycle.

La escuela BelovED Community Charter School se benefició de la construcción de una zona para juego de los niños gracias al programa de reciclaje de cepillos de dientes, tubo de pasta dentales y envases de hilo dental. Este programa fue ideado por Colgate, ShopRite y la empresa de reciclaje de Trenton llamada TerraCycle. Varias escuelas de Nueva York, Pensilvania, Delaware, Connecticut y Nueva Jersey compitieron entre marzo y junio.

Children at a New Jersey charter school are showing off the benefits of brushing and flossing their teeth– and it’s not just in their smiles. CBS2’s Elise Finch explains they won a recycling contest by saving old toothpaste tubes and dental floss containers. The Jersey City students of Beloved Community Charter School were all smiles as they raced around their brand new playground, complete with a side, monkey bars and mini climbing wall.