Teachers and students at Green Acres Elementary used to see a lot of used Capri Sun drink pouches get thrown awayWhen they signed up to send them to a company called TerraCycle, the school began earning two cents for every one of those pouches and became part of a nationwide effort that just reached an impressive milestone of keeping 50 million pouches out of landfills.

Other things such as juice pouches and potato chip packages are collected and sent to Terracycle, a company which promotes a way to help “outsmart waste.” Items from Terracycle include fence partitions made from “up-cycled” drink pouches, insulated coolers made from candy wrappers, and recycling bins made from recycled plastics. Backpacks and shower curtains also are made from the recycled trash the school kids are sending in. These things can be found at stores including Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot, said Galvan.

One company is making a big impact with their innovative initiative to find a practical use for nearly all commercial packaging waste. TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  not only encourages recycling through their upcycling brigades, where consumers are paid for their waste, but they turn said waste into valuable products! These products are then sold at major retailers nationwide, such as WalMart, Target, Petco, and Whole Foods.

Terracycle and Ziploc have teamed up for the Make a Difference Mom contest.  See the promotional material and contest rules HERE.  Below is a small bit of the information from their promotional material!

But, really what WOW’d me were the TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  goodies. Have you heard about Terracycle? What you do is collect drink pouches, ziploc bags, cookie wrappers, candy wrappers (see the whole collectable list <http://www.terracycle.net/brigades?show_all=true>  here) . For every approved wrapper you get .02 cents donated to a charitable organization. And the items you send get turned into fences, coolers, totes, binders, backpacks and more. And you can BUY these cool goodies online or at retail stores, like the Home Depot or Wal-Mart.

The girls in Brownie Troop 1345 used to see a lot of Capri Sun drink pouches get thrown away. Once they signed up to recycle them through a company called TerraCycle, they began earning two cents for every one of those pouches and became part of a nationwide effort that has just reached a milestone — keeping 50 million pouches out of landfills.

Lovell J. Honiss School's Honiss Environmental Club in Dumont and the Berkley Street School in New Milford are participating in the TerraCycle Brigades, a trash-to-cash collection contest, sponsored by Walmart and TerraCycle, that will reward the top-collecting New Jersey public schools with $125,000 in grants.

Before those Halloween candy wrappers end up in the trash, you may want to know about a free way to give them a second life as purses, kites and other items. TerraCycle, a company that makes products from non-recyclable waste materials, has partnered with Mars/Wrigley and Cadbury for the "Candy Wrapper Brigade." It collects the wrappers and upcycles them into products. It's organized many such brigades and sells more than 50 items at major retailers such as Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market.

Lovell J. Holniss School's Honiss Environmental Club in Dumont and the Berkley Street School in New Milford ar participating in the TerraCycle Brigades, a trash-to-cash collection contest, sponsored by Walmart and TerrraCycle, that will reward the top-collecting New Jersey public schools with $125,000 in grants.