Trash. We all make it and someone has to clean it up.
One local school club has made it a mission to not just clean up the trash, but to recycle all of it — for the entire school.
Our hats are off to the members of the Rockin’ Recycling Club at St. Andrew School in Waynesboro.
The club has distributed recycling bins to all the classes in the school, collecting the recyclable items at the end of each week. The club now participates in the Terracycle program, which also recycles juice pouches, baggies and chip and cookie bags. Through the program, the school receives points that can be used for more recycling items, rewards for the school or other activities.
On Friday, 28 Snellvillians between ages 16-60 boarded a bus at 6:15 AM to hear Tom Szaky speak. As INC Magazine’s #1 CEO under the age of 30, they wanted to learn as much as they can about ways to parlay his kind of clever resourcefulness into their city center. The 28 Snellvillians who attended are:
* Seven small business leaders fighting tooth and nail for their success in the recession’s midst
* Two teachers from South Gwinnett High who teach marketing and economics to students whose parents are striving for success against the forces of the recession’s toil
* 16 students from South Gwinnett’s Entrepreneurship class and the DECA Club, who are committed to the free enterprise system and to opening small businesses after they achieve their educational goals
* Snellville’s Mayor, Jerry Oberholtzer, and city council members who have a plan for this new city center and are looking for retail and commercial businesses to make it come to fruition
* Economic Development manager, Eric Van Otteren, who knows that the value for creating community begins in the hearts and minds of Snellville’s people
Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer stated, ”We are not a city to sit on its laurels and wait for progress to come our way. We know that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. We are getting prepared and we are actively looking for opportunities. We believe that if Snellville offers entrepreneurial strategies for its residents – whether they are 16 or 60, we can create a place where community and commerce thrive.”
Much remains to be done reduce our generation of e-waste. TerraCycle is one company taking steps in the right direction. The New Jersey-based firm, partnering with Logitech, has launched the Keyboard and Mouse Brigade. The program allows users to box up and send TerraCycle unwanted unwanted keyboards and computer mice. TerraCycle, in turn, promises to churn the discarded equipment into new products. Customers need to only collect about 20 pieces of equipment per box and TerraCycle offers free shipping via UPS. In turn, senders can either collect points to redeem as charitable gifts or have donated to the non-profit of their choice–and they can suggest new uses for the waste that TerraCycle collects.
TerraCycle’s Back to School recycling efforts have been underway with collection programs for Frito-Lay chip bags, Nabisco cookie wrappers, and Capri Sun and Honest Kids juice pouches. They collect these normally non-recyclable items, upcycle and recycle them, and pay their collectors for what they send in. Interested schools and individuals can sign up HERE.
To Poughkeepsie's Tabernacle Christian Academy — one of four schools nationwide to receive a donated playground made, in part, from recycled flip flops collected from Old Navy customers. The recipients of the playgrounds — made by PDPlay, manufacturers of environmentally friendly playground equipment based in Vista, Calif. — were selected through a competitive grant survey held by TerraCycle. The school, located on Academy Street, installed the playground with local volunteers.
Recycle your cosmetic packing and help out a charity. L’Oreal Garnier and TerraCycle have partnered to create The Personal Care and Beauty Brigade. After signing up at www.terracycle.net, fill up a box of empty cosmetic containers. Print out a per-paid shipping label, send it off and get points that go to a charity of your choice.
Students from Concord Christian Academy have been collecting trash - and funds - this fall.
The students collect normally nonrecyclable trash, send it in to TerraCycle, a company that pays for the junk, recycles it and turns it into other products - anything from backpacks and flower pots to plastic lumber, tote bags, and pencil cases.
So far, the local students have collected more than 4,000 snack bags, almost 4,000 drink pouches, more than 200 lunch kits, and more than 2,000 home storage items like plastic baggies to be reused and recycled.
What should be done about America's debt? It's the $14 trillion question that continues to fuel debate in the halls of Congress and across dinner tables nationwide. To the delight of frustrated supporters and chagrin of emboldened critics, President Obama came out uncharacteristically swinging this week -- announcing in a Rose Garden speech his plan for $3 trillion in savings, which includes new taxes for the wealthy, a so-called millionaires tax and the elimination of loopholes and deductions.
During his speech, the president's newly populist message tried to preempt his critics' inevitable line of attack by declaring, "This is not class warfare. It's math." And sure enough, the party line from the opposition party has been just that: Taxing the rich, they claim, is a socialist tactic that punishes achievement, and taxing anyone in a teetering economy would push us all over the edge.
When trying to underscore the need to rein in the skyrocketing debt, supporters often make the analogy that if families have to balance their checkbooks, then so too should the federal government. But that analogy doesn't really hold up. It's more appropriate to think of the United States as a business -- one that has up years and down years, requiring operational adjustments based on how much money it spends and how much it brings in.
With that in mind, we decided to ignore the politics and politicians and ask a group of people who actually run businesses what they would do about the debt. We just may see some members of our Board of Directors running for office soon.
Tom Szaky
Founder, TerraCycle"The Eco-Capitalist"
"It's hard to argue with closing loopholes for special interests -- with ExxonMobil's profits up 53 percent, it's clear there's no need for a federal subsidy there, and it would allow for lowering the corporate tax rate. As CEO of a small company, I could only wish for that kind of corporate welfare, but would welcome the lower corporate rate.
"Allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire -- and enacting the Buffett Rule, for that matter -- is also a no brainer. Those of us who benefit from the American marketplace shouldn't balk at supporting it.
"The issue is that none of the measures in the plan will affect non-discretionary spending, which is the real challenge, both politically and fiscally."
