LOWELL -- The YWCA Green Team started without a name. As a small group of committed youth and staff volunteers, they piloted recycling efforts at the 2000 Lowell Folk Festival. Today, 12 years later, the group is about to surmount the half-million mark in recycled beverage containers -- plastic soda, water, sports drink and juice bottles, as well as metal soda cans and plastic No. 6 PS drinking cups. Working closely with Lowell's Solid Waste and Recycling Office, the Green Team formalized its name in 2008. Now, in addition to the Lowell Folk Festival, the Green Team assists with recycling at a variety of events, including the Textile River Regatta, National Night Out and the Bay State Marathon. The Green Team has also forged relationships with approximately 20 local nonprofit, municipal and private organizations. The partnerships establish recycling drop-off stations and provides on-call pick up of their recyclables -- like toner cartridges, cellphones, button-cell batteries and bottles and cans. Some of the valuable partners include Merrimack River Valley House, the American Textile History Museum, Community Team Work Inc., various Lowell municipal offices, The Boys and Girls Club, Miracle Ear and the Lowell Teen Coalition. Most recently, the Green Team has started collecting and recycling yogurt/dairy tubs. One of the most prized partnerships has been forged with Coca-Cola of New England in Lowell. The local Coke facility has generously accepted all collected noncarbonated No. 1 PET plastic (nonnickel) bottles -- including those of a competitor bottling company -- that the Green Team has collected at the Lowell Spinners baseball home games, nearly 10,000 bottles and cans from this season alone.

While writing a previous article on green dental care, I found out about a great company called TerraCycle, which offers a program to accept “non-recyclable or hard to recycle waste,” such as toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes. After looking at the website , I decided TerraCycle deserved an article of its own! Started by a young Princeton student, TerraCycle began as a small business that sold worm casting fertilizer in used soda bottles. TerraCycle started expanding its business by producing various products out of post-consumer waste, such as pencil cases out of used CapriSun drink pouches. This process, called upcycling, involves producing new, useful products out of waste materials and useless products that otherwise would go to the landfill. So, upcycling helps reduce landfill waste and reduces resource use. TerraCycle quickly grew into a global project with over 20 countries now participating in their upcycling efforts.

Another Successful Terracycle shipment from the HUB!  This shipment tacked up another 4670 points in Terracycle points.  There were 316 Candy wrappers, 1208 Chip bags, 1420 Energy bar wrappers and 101 yogurt cups mailed!  This was just the summer collection.   Keep up the collection efforts!  These points will benefit THON and the Educational Equity Scholarship Fund (yogurt cups).   Thanks to all who participate.nother Successful Terracycle shipment from the HUB!  This shipment tacked up another 4670 points in Terracycle points.  There were 316 Candy wrappers, 1208 Chip bags, 1420 Energy bar wrappers and 101 yogurt cups mailed!  This was just the summer collection.   Keep up the collection efforts!  These points will benefit THON and the Educational Equity Scholarship Fund (yogurt cups).   Thanks to all who participate.

Aside from eating rabbit, I think there’s only one thing I’m allergic to: company retreats. Even in elementary school, I found the idea of team-building games — from trust falls to three-legged races — nauseating. But in a professional environment with a group of adults? I cannot understand why a company would spend money and people’s time at such retreats. Of course, there is an entire industry built around these events, which suggests a question: Do they actually work? If you look at the Web sites of the companies that manage retreats, they say the goal is to build communication and cooperation and to improve morale and have fun. These sources go on to highlight that a company retreat wouldn’t be complete without “considerations” like a spa evening or a golf outing. The goal, after spending a considerable amount of money and time, is to “stimulate future productivity by helping your employees reconnect and relax.” Now, I consider myself something of a new age chief executive. Our company prides itself on transparency and accessibility, and we even have a culture of Nerf guns complete with our own chief Nerf gun officer (the C.N.O.). But we are a business, and we come to work to work, not to play or relax. While I am in the business of giving frequent and direct feedback, I am not in the business of giving hugs or focusing on things that don’t drive fundamental and objective productivity. That is not to say that I don’t want all of my colleagues to love their jobs and enjoy their time at the office. Work should be fun, rewarding and enjoyable. It’s what we spend most of our waking lives doing.

One of the most pervasive types of litter is cigarette butts. And contrary to popular belief, they are not biodegradable. Most cigarette filters are composed of cellulose acetate, a synthetic plastic-like substance used commonly for photographic film. Thousands of cigarette butts litter our roadsides, sidewalks, parking lots, and beaches. In fact, according to Ocean Conservancy.org, they are the number one litter item found. A couple of companies are working on solutions that range from recycling the butts into plastic (TerraCycle now has a fundraising brigade for butts), and InnovaGreen in Ohio uses the butts to manufacture coatings and adhesives as well as generate employment, as the butts must processed by hand.

Hi Tonda Families! It’s that time again… Terracycle Time! For those who are new to our school, let me explain. Terracycle is a recycling company that will “reward” us for recycling. We belong to 3 different “brigades”… Drink Pouches, Candy Wrappers and Bags (no cardboard candy boxes) and Lunchable containers. They accept ALL BRANDS from every brigade- even generic store brands. Three labeled bins are located in the cafeteria on the stage, for the children to put their items in after lunch. Please remind them to empty all food pieces and drink pouches as much as they can before placing them into their respective bins. Once we have enough of each, the items are shipped to Terracycle (free of charge), earning money for the school. Last year we were able to recycle enough from all of the brigades to collect $123! We generally receive $0.02-$0.05 for each item. It may not seem like a lot right now, but it can quickly add up. **New this year: we now need to send in at least 2000 drink pouches every 6 months to receive any money back (we have only until late December to send these in). PLEASE save all you can! Send them back with your child(ren) after a weekend of sporting events, scouts, parties etc. They DO NOT need to be completed washed out- just empty them as much as you can. This has been a great way to earn money for our school while teaching the children about the importance of recycling and saving the Earth

TerraCycle公司创始人及CEO TOM SZAKY 面试有长有短，有的可持续几个月，有的坐下来聊了几句就有了结果。但是前者适合公司的高级职位，我认为太长的面试周期对招聘一般员工并不合适。 在过去的十来年里我形成了自己独特的面试风格。首先，我不是很看重简历的内容，但关注这几个问题：应聘者是否频繁跳槽，是否跨行业跳槽;在一个公司做的是否长久。这很重要，因为人员不稳定对企业的影响非常大。 我认为，文凭只对工作经验不满5年的人有用。工作5年后，应聘者毕业于哪所学校、在学校里的表现如何已经不重要了（我只有高中文凭）。反应学历越高的人期望晋升的越快，不是在你这里就是到别的公司。当然，对科学或会计方面的职位，学历还是很重要的。

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State wants to collect 5,000 candy wrappers during the 2012-13 season to benefit the charity Feeding America. Through a TerraCycle program called the Candy Wrapper Brigade, which awards points for each wrapper collected, the Center for the Performing Arts would be able to provide 200 meals through Feeding America, a national charity with the mission to provide nourishment to America’s hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks. “We’ve had lots of requests to do something to help people more locally,” said Peg Lucas, a member of the Center for the Performing Arts Green Team. “Since we have participation from people who live in numerous counties, and it’s more profitable through TerraCycle® to use points than actual monetary value in return for wrappers collected, we decided that the Feeding America program is about as local as we can get. Our goal of 5,000 wrappers is equal to 200 meals versus $250.” Last season the performing arts center collected more than 6,400 wrappers that were redeemed to provide clean drinking water for a year to 43 people in developing countries. Patrons attending events at Eisenhower Auditorium, on the corner of Shortlidge and Eisenhower roads at University Park, may place used candy wrappers in lobby collection boxes. Eligible waste -- from auditorium concession sales or from home or office use -- includes individual candy wrappers, large candy bags and multi-pack candy bags. Candy wrappers and bags may also be dropped off at Eisenhower during regular business hours, weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or at the Penn State Downtown Theatre Center (146 S. Allen St., State College), weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Penn State employees may send candy wrappers and bags via campus mail to Pam Aikey, Eisenhower Auditorium, or Shannon Bishop, Penn State Downtown Theatre Center. Each year millions of candy wrappers are needlessly thrown away, and most end up in landfills. TerraCycle® partners with Mars®, Wrigley® and Cadbury® to create a second life for candy packaging, but all brands of wrappers and candy bags are accepted for the recycling program. Learn more about the program at www.terracycle.net. Find out what else is going on at the Center for the Performing Arts at www.cpa.psu.edu.

Well, a great example is our work with TerraCycle. They have consumers send them non-recyclable packaging and then reward consumers for sending it back rather than putting it in the trash. They have a great, unique business model. TerraCycle had approached us with a novel way of turning used packaging into brand new products like tote bags and folders. We wanted to find solutions to help divert packaging that can’t be recycled from going to landfill, and we knew that working with TerraCycle would raise our brands’ profile and influence our consumers to make better choices. We were the first major company to partner with TerraCycle when they were still very small. Our Capri-Sun beverage brand took a risk. Because TerraCycle gave us a unique solution, that relationship has blossomed. Today, several of our brands are working with TerraCycle and we’re the largest sponsor of TerraCycle brigades, which we’ve helped expand to 11 countries. We now have more than 130,000 locations around the world with around 2.5 million people collecting post-consumer waste. TerraCycle has enabled us to divert more than 170 million household packages and 3,800 tons of manufacturing waste from going to landfills or incineration.

Albe Zakes is the 27 year-old Global VP, Media Relations at TerraCycle, Inc., the world's leading 'upcycling' company, which converts difficult-to-recycle waste materials into eco-friendly, affordable products available at major retailers worldwide. TerraCycle partners with major CPG companies like Kraft Food, Nestle, L'Oreal, Mars and PepsiCo to run community based collection fundraisers that function both as innovative packaging reclamation initiatives and cause-related marketing programs. Read more.. Under Albe's management, TerraCycle's PR department has secured over 10,000 unique media placements since 2007 and secured over $200 million dollars in ad value for TerraCycle's partners and products. He helped secure appearances for his CEO on Oprah, Good Morning America, The Today Show, 20/20, CNN, CNBC and many more.