About 30 OFIS fifth graders are busy making the building “green.”  These Green Team members spend their free time after school working on various environmental-type projects. Right now they are spreading the word about collecting juice pouches and chip bags to earn money through a company called TerraCycle.  Each bag and juice pouch collected is worth 2 cents. The group also is collecting lids for an upcoming recycling project

Snack wrappers: Chips, candy, granola bars — unless your child has a Terracycle collection (terracycle.com) at school, these are landfill-bound. Opt for snacks that come in recyclable packaging, such as a cardboard box with a clear, stretchy liner that is accepted for recycling at the grocery store

I recently learned about this program run by a company called TerraCycle. They partner with a number of companies, including Bear Naked, Clif Bar & Company brands (including Shot Bloks and Clif Shot) and Tom’s of Maine; and offer programs for everyday refuse items like snack bags (potato chip bags, for example, which I remember learning in grad school have something like 17 layers) and even cigarette butts.

One of the group's major projects, in which the community may participate, is collecting juice pouches and chip/snack bags. Rather than dropping them into the trash, they are gathering them to earn money through a company called TerraCycle, which is an international upcycling and recycling firm that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging and products and repurposes the material into affordable, innovative products.

TerraCycle, of Trenton, N.J., was founded in 2001 by its CEO Tom Szaky and began by selling liquid fertilizer made from worm waste products in reused containers. The company quickly grew into a business that specializes in making consumer products from pre- and post-consumer waste in a process known as “upcycling.” For products that cannot be reused or turned into another product, the company recycles the waste and makes something completely new out of it. In addition to cigarette butts, TerraCycle also recycles used gum and diapers.

While you’re caring for your teeth, don’t forget to also take care of the earth. According to the EPA, by turning off the tap while you brush your teeth in the morning and before bedtime, you can save up to eight gallons of water! Parents and kids can also visit www.terracycle to learn how to recycle or upcycle toothpaste tubes

Salon owners and employees regularly transform clients, but now they can transform the salon itself to become a zero waste establishment. By joining the Zero Waste program from recycling pioneer TerraCycle, salon owners can collect and recycle everything from empty product tubes and bottles, old brushes and combs, latex gloves and even human hair

A dentist in Madison, WI has a dental practice that belongs to the eco-dentistry association. In her practice she utilizes TerraCycle to collect items such as discarded toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes

Finally, it’s worth noting that some communities have set up specific recycling streams for the most common composite materials.  I can recycle both milk cartons and aseptic containers if I sort them separately and drop them off at a specific location.  You can also check out TerraCycle and join one of their recycling brigades, some of which accept certain composite materials.

In nature, the waste of one system is food for another. Before humans began creating complex materials that nature can't digest, there was no waste, and humans fit nicely into the ecosystem. In the past 100 years, however, humans developed a range of complex materials that nature can't digest.