CROSSVILLE – A bag of chips is a popular addition to many kids’ school lunches, but at the end of lunch, most of those bags end up in the garbage. Students from Crossville Elementary School decided to keep their garbage from ending up in landfills and raise money for their school, all by collecting chip bags through a company called TerraCycle. Their dedication has paid off, as they have become one of the top 100 chip bag collectors in America and are using the money for a field day at the end of the year.

Yes I said it. Boxed Wine. Most people think ICK but it can actually be a great value and really good wine. Now let me just say that there is a big difference between brands of boxed wine.

When our stuff is thrown away it ends up in a landfill. Now, that’s a really backward way to run a country and care for the planet. We are spending money to build lined and permitted landfills until the hole in the ground is full, and then we spend more on capping that landfill with an engineered and permitted design for that closing. And then we dig another big hole and proceed to fill that one, too. That’s our tax money. We worked to earn it and then, instead of saving it, we throw some away! Plympton does not have roadside trash pick-up. We have a transfer station. We take our trash there, where people are paid to oversee the crushing, sweeping up and seeing that it is picked up for hauling to a landfill. Trucks, truck drivers, gasoline, and all the administrative overhead costs that go with any business all go into hauling away our trash. Can you imagine how costly that is? Check out your town’s budget for that and think about it the next time you throw something away that could be taken out of that costly equation by recycling it. The trash bins would be open for receiving for a longer time, thus reducing the pick-up costs. Recycling would go up, bringing in money for the town. Halifax Town Hall has been collecting bottle caps for a few years now, all because of one little boy whose class was participating in a recycling program. The boy wanted to collect more than anyone else, and he did, with the help of a bunch of women collecting caps all year long. What began as a fun project to help one enthusiastic boy has become a routine practice. It would feel odd now to not remove the cap, thus lowering the value of the bottle, for they are made out of different plastics. Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. We need to pay more attention to the first two, and then, when we no longer can find a use for something, it’s nice to know that we have more options for recycling than what is offered by our town programs. It’s important to reduce our waste of money and our waste of the earth, too. “Terra” is Latin for “earth.” You can join in celebrating the care of our terra firma on April 22, this year’s Earth Day, by following the example set by the third-graders collecting paper and the little boy collecting bottle caps and Kevin helping Franklin Park Zoo via TerraCycle. Let the savings begin!

It’s time for spring cleaning, and the truth is in the trash. It’s springtime, alright. Down by the street there are bottles and packages tossed out of passing cars. I hate the looks of it, and I can’t understand how some people can do that without a bothered conscience. I am only thankful for a memory it elicits. When my children were young I discovered what looked like a bottle dump, except that these weren’t old and they were mostly “nip” bottles. My children confessed that I had stumbled upon their laboratory. They wanted to see what would grow in various mediums such as dirt, water or moss. My sister’s boy began to plead with jealousy that he wanted a lab, too! Don’t you just love children’s creative and sometimes competitive spirit? In a similar spirit, some people are making money by making creative recycling their business. One such company is TerraCycle based in Trenton, N.J. It was founded by the worm poop guy. You know of him, right? I remember the story being in the news but did not realize he has grown from homemade fertilizer to fantastic recycling partnerships all over the world. According to their website, “Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, then a 20-year-old Princeton University freshman, TerraCycle began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid worm poop in used soda bottles. Since then TerraCycle has grown into one of the fastest-growing green companies in the world.” TerraCylcing was recently brought to my attention by Kevin Rogers. Kevin works at the Franklin Park Zoo (among other cool places), where they receive some much-needed funds for collecting items usually considered trash. Candy bags, bread bags, cookie packages, cosmetic containers, tooth brushes, floss containers, pens and highlighters are among the items currently being collected. Kevin hopes to expand the benefits by finding locations allowing him to place collection boxes. He would also like to have some attractive containers built by partnering with the schools’ vocational classes. I suggested a Scout might be interested in the idea for an Eagle Scout project. For right now, the project has begun at the Halifax Recycling Center, with drop-offs of potato chip bags, cookie packages and candy bar wrappers. They ask that you please not place these items in your roadside pick-up, but take them to the Recycling Center.

The challenges of a waste-recycling business. As I mentioned in my last post, I am going to be writing a series of posts about our expansion into foreign markets. Ever since we began this expansion, I have been asked how often we are solicited for bribes in foreign countries. The funny thing is that while bribery is perceived to be relatively commonplace in international business, it may be more common in this country than people like to think. At least that’s what a former TerraCycle employee who used to work for a major American consumer products company told me.

The first TerraCycle Tuesday of April! Yesterday, the new Dairy Tub Brigade was launched. This new brigade is a mix of the former Yogurt Cup and Spreads Container brigades.

Independent Gemini doesn’t like to be tied down by anything. Even a beauty routine with too many steps could send her running for the hills! Keeping life simple in every possible way is her main goal, so Garnier Fructis Pure Clean 2in1 Shampoo & Conditioner is exactly what she needs. This new, unique, 92% biodegradable wonder is crystal clear and does both of its jobs to soft, shining perfection in one fell swoop! She can also team with Garnier and TerraCycle to keep all kinds of beauty packaging out of landfills by signing up for their Personal Care and Beauty Brigade, a free collection program for hair care, skin care and cosmetic packaging. For each piece of waste returned, collectors earn points toward charity gifts or donations! Pick up your Garnier multitasker at mass retailers nationwide and become a recycling warrior atwww.terracycle.com.

“The diapers are very gross, horrible, but the shipping containers hold 100% of the smell,” assures Terracycle’s Albe Zakes. “We tested this by hiding them around the office and seeing if anyone noticed; they did not.”

“The diapers are very gross, horrible, but the shipping containers hold 100% of the smell,” assures Terracycle’s Albe Zakes. “We tested this by hiding them around the office and seeing if anyone noticed; they did not.”

Ginger chicken with bananas and brown rice, baked sweet potatoes with white beans, and for dessert roasted pears and apricots. Sound like an inspired meal? It's baby food from Sprout, organic gourmet baby food cooked up by Chef Tyler Florence of the Food Network, father of three, cookbook author and gastronomic entrepreneur. As he says, giving babies healthy choices early on establishes food preferences for good food. After all, they’ve got something like 7,000 more tastebuds in their tiny mouths. Last year I heard Dr. Alan Green decry that the #1 choice of most doctors for babies’ first solid food was processed white rice cereal. The author of Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care, blames long-term health problems on kids’ dependency on sugary starchy food, and it all begins with that first bite. Dr. Green happily reported at this year’s Natural Products Expo that his “White Out” campaign worked -- just one year later, 93% of pediatricians now recommend feeding real whole foods to babies. “It’s a dramatic reversal,” he said, proudly explaining the thinking behind “Color In” for babies. No need to sneak fruits and veggies into kids' diets, if they've started with a banana.

"White Out" and "Color In"

Today, young parents are choosing to skip the rice-syrup filled mushy goop, making their own purees. In 2009, Treehugger reported on "7 Great Green Baby Foods," noting that unfortunately organic baby food wasn’t as common as it should be. In just a few years, there are plenty of delicious, gourmet options for tots and tykes, if Expo West is an indication. And without thickeners, added sugars or salts. Plus most of these foods are packaged in BPA-free pouches that can be upcycled through TerraCycle. Plum Organics is still going strong, and there's also Baby Gourmet's Veggie Lentil Dahl, Oh Baby'ss gingery Wise Punkin and minty greens, Ella’s Kitchen Four Bean Feast, and Happy Family’s line of superfoods mixed with banana, peach and mango. I don’t know about kids eating popped puffs, even if the colorful fruits and vegetable snacks and have only one gram of sugar. But with tastes like blueberry & purple sweet potato, spinach & apple, and strawberry & beet, maybe Plum Organics could make them for adults? Yum.