To help, one company is offering consumers a way to reduce their household garbage while earning money for local schools or charities.
Through free collection programs called Brigades, upcycling pioneer TerraCycle is collecting and paying for packaging waste from household staples- from the bathroom to the kitchen to the classroom.
Many major brands are getting on board with upcycling. Scott Tissue and Huggies are sponsoring programs to collect plastic packaging waste from paper products and diapers.
And since most oral hygiene products aren't recyclable, Colgate and TerraCycle have partnered to collect used toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.
Two women at Gulfside Elementary School manage the recycling program at the school and collect non-recyclablle packaging to send to TerraCycle.
From there it goes to Burton's garage in Holiday, where it's sorted and shipped to various recycling programs sponsored by Coca-Cola Recycling Program, Pepsi and Waste Management, and their latest venture with a company called Terracycle.
For the green at heart, there's a bounty of items that aren't on the typical recycle list that Terracycle will take and turn into something else — candy wrappers, yogurt cups, empty tape dispensers, glue bottles and the plastic store wrapping on paper towels and toilet paper. Done with that grated cheese? They'll take the wrapper. Empty tube of toothpaste? That, too, along with your old toothbrush.
"It's all stuff the county won't pick up; stuff you can't recycle in your blue bags," said Rash, who discovered the program while surfing the Internet. "And we get money for it. Two cents for a candy wrapper and 2 cents for the drink pouches."
That might seem like small change, but it adds up — $634 so far this year funneled into the school's ABC program to help needy students or to buy classroom supplies.
To help, one company is offering consumers a way to reduce their household garbage while earning money for local schools or charities.
Through free collection programs called Brigades, upcycling pioneer TerraCycle is collecting and paying for packaging waste from household staples- from the bathroom to the kitchen to the classroom.
Many major brands are getting on board with upcycling.
Scott Tissue and Huggies are sponsoring programs to collect plastic packaging waste from paper products and diapers.
And since most oral hygiene products aren't recyclable, Colgate and TerraCycle have partnered to collect used toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.
Just to give you some background, in my first article, I highlighted the following: Ecophones (gives cash for a multitude of items,) TerraCycle, who pays for items that ordinarily go in the trash, and Staples, who now gives Staples money for print cartridges along with Laptop Lunches, and many others. What I love about this prior article is the amount of comments from people providing additional green fundraising sources. So, be sure to check out this article for great ideas.
One way to go green without costly changes is to take things you would ordinarily throw away and reuse them. Milk crates can become book shelves and metallic drink pouches can be stitched together to make pencil cases for the children. This practice is called upcycling and you can either do it yourself or contribute reusable household trash to organizations that convert it into eco-friendly products.
To help one company is offering consumers a way to reduce their household garbage while earning money for local schools or charities. Through free collection programs called Brigades, upcycling pioneer TerraCycle is collecting and paying for packaging waste from household staples—from the bathroom to the kitchen to the classroom.
The Upcycle It! program launched in May 2010 with the goal of turning traditional non-recyclables into cash for Westford schools. Through a partnership with the national organization, Terracycle, Sustainable Westford collects items in certain brigades (or categories) for which Terracycle pays 2 cents per item. It quickly gained popularity with local residents contributing tens of thousands of pieces of trash and local schools joining the cause supported by Superintendent Everett “Bill” Olsen.
Each week, members of the Recycling Team of The Green Team gather all the drink pouches, squeeze out the excess liquid and count them. They are participating in TerraCycle's Drink Pouch Brigade, an initiative to allow schools and nonprofits to recycle drink pouches and earn money for their schools and organizations. So far they have received more than $300. They intend to use the money to help with the community garden that The Green Team will be building this spring.
Fourth-grader Joe Seese said he thought "it is a great way to earn money for the garden because everyone brings them for lunch."
Haerbig, however, said it is "a gross job and you go home covered in juice and smelling like fermented grape juice." But she was quick to add that all the students who count the pouches volunteered for the job. Their best week was 2,500 pouches.
The fourth-graders also recycle their food wastes, putting them into a compost heap built by the team last spring. A new initiative to recycle the plasticware is also being piloted by fourth-graders.
