Through the end of October, a joint promotion between TerraCycle and the MOM Brands Cereal Bag Brigade will let you turn empty cereal bags and liners into a cool gift. Rewards Are in the Bag for Cereal Lovers - Earth911.com

According to TerraCycle, Inc., Locust Grove Primary School, located on Route 20 in Orange County, was one of the top five collectors of recycled items this year.

Terracycle, Inc., a Trenton, N.J.-based recycling company, recently held a nationwide contest called Elmer’s Annual Classroom Cleanout Contest. With 1,822 pieces of waste shipped to the company, Hillcrest was one of five schools that won a bonus donation to their school, which they will use for their Outdoor Classroom project.

School Wins National Recycling Contest and Community Can Help

GOLD: TerraCycle TerraCycle’s business model is to eliminate waste by offering free recycling fundraisers to any school, non-profit, corporation or individual/family for any type of man-made waste. The program incentivizes the collection of common packaging and products ranging from candy wrappers to cosmetics, packaging to cigarette butts. “Brigades” collect waste that TerraCycle then turns into more than 1500 new products, ranging from recycled park benches to upcycled backpacks. These products are available online and at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods. There are currently more than 40 programs that range from food packaging (like drink pouches and candy wrappers) to office supplies (like pens and tape dispensers) to personal products (like cosmetic and beauty packaging to diaper packaging). For every item returned, TerraCycle donates two-cents (or the local equivalent) to a school or non-profit of the collector’s choice. TerraCycle operates in 22 countries, minimizing the global threats of landfill and incineration on humans and the environment. So far, through TerraCycle, 32 million consumers have diverted 2.5 billion units of waste from landfill and incineration, while earning over 4.5 million dollars (US) for schools and myriad non- profits. For example, the drink pouch is a ubiquitous waste stream found in every school cafeteria in America. In order to offset the estimated 11 BILLION pouches that go to waste every year in America alone, TerraCycle partnered with Honest Tea and Capri Sun to start the Drink Pouch Brigade. The free recycling fundraiser was an opportunity for two competitors to put aside their corporate differences and do the right thing for the environment. Since the Program was founded, over 70,000 organizations – including 57,000 schools – signed up for the program. As of December 2012 they helped collect over 164 MILLION drink pouches and collectively earned over 3.2 million dollars. The collected pouches are upcycled or recycled into a variety of products. School items like pencil cases and backpacks that help to complete the education for kids. The students get to see what the pouches they helped collect are turned into for a second life. Pouches are also recycled into more utilitarian products like park benches, picnic tables and railroad ties. TerraCycle’s programs are sponsored by some of the world’s largest companies. These major companies include Kraft Foods, Nestle, Mars, Inc., Kimberly-Clark, Frito-Lay, Kashi, Sanford, Elmer’s Products, Inc, Logitech, Old Navy, Clif Bar, Sprout Baby Food, 3M, Malt-O-Meal, Colgate, Palmolive, L’Oreal, and BIC.

TerraCycle Triathlon of Trash Winner Gets Free UGA Semester Dedicated to the Late Jim McGown of Athens who passed away March 7 of this year. A Veteran of the U.S. Navy, and a tireless worker for the betterment of mankind whose labor and efforts were felt as far away as the Middle East! There is No Waste...Only Wasted Resources! Perhaps Earth Day Should be Every Day as we only have one Earth and without it we would be lost! St Gregory the Great Episcopal Church on the East Side has now earned almost $6,000 by keeping over 260,000 pieces of formally difficult to recycle trash out of the landfill. While Broward College near Ft. Lauderdale has now earned $15,000. Let's be honest how much sense does it make to bury unbiodegradable trash under ground from land we stole from Mother Nature? This is Varsity Recycling: TerraCycle.com is now accepting what we would normally think of as difficult or impossible to recycle. Things like Any & All: Chip Bags, Candy Wrappers, Glue Sticks, Sunscreen  and Lipstick Tubes, and now Any and All Cigarette Trash to include Stinky Cigarette Butts. Here is the Deal: From right now until August 15th, 2013 collect everything you can from the list below placing and separating each category in its own container such as a  Box, Bird Seed, or Pet Food Bag.  Feel free to get as large as you want but make sure a single average person can move the container around fairly easy through average doorways with the assistance of a hand truck. Items can be damp but not soaked and should be shaken or squeezed free of most food and liquid.(No Need To Scrub or Rinse Anything Out) Boxes and Packages will be opened for inspection. The winner with the most by weight wins a free Semester(In-State Tuition estimated to be $3,800)! Participants will meet for a Showdown on August 16th, 2013 at a location To Be Determined. For more information meet Captain PLaneT for a personal demonstration, description, and Q&A in the Odum School of Ecology Courtyard on Tuesday June 11th, 2013 at 4:00 pm! Or schedule me for a briefing at your location! If you are far away I can just email you all the UPS Shipping Labels for free shipping and TerraCycle will do the measuring. Just ask me for a label for specific brigades. The List:

1. Any & All Drink Pouches(Such as Capri-Sun, Kool-Aid to include the straws and straw wrappers)
2. Any & All Coffee Pouches(Such as Maxwell House, Equal Exchange Organic, and Starbucks)
3. Any & All Cookie and Cracker Wrappers(Such as Oreo and Keebler)
4. Any & All Energy or Breakfast Bar and Energy Food Wrappers(Such as Granola Bars, Breakfast Bars, Cliff Bars, Oddwalla Bars, Nut Bags, Kashi Bars)
5. Any & All Candy Wrappers(Such as M&Ms, Hershey, and Snickers) and Gum Wrappers(Such as Trident, Bubblicious, and Wrigley)
6. Any & All Chip and Salty Snack Bags(Such as Frito Lay, Pepperidge Farm, potato chip, crackers, pretzel, cheeto, nacho, and any that look and feel similar)
7. Any & All Lunch Kit Trays, Wrappers(such as Lunchables)
8. Any & All Dairy Tub Containers(Such as Stonyfield Farms, Chobani, Dannon) Butter Type Spread Containers (Such as Country Crock, Promise, and yes even the little baby single serve sizes along with baby coffee creamers) Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese, etc.
9. Sprout Brand Baby Food as well as Any & All Crushed Fruit Bags and Containers and Wrappers(GoGo Squeeze, Plum Organics, Gerber,  Chiquita, Ella's Kitchen, etc)
10. Any & All Cereal Bags(Such as Malt-O-Meal, Rice Crispies, and Honey Nut Cheerios)
11. Bear Naked Brand Granola and Cereal Product Wrappers
12. Any & All Corks Real and Fake Plastic from wine and other liquor bottles
13. Any & All Disposable Household Tape Dispensers (Such as Scotch Tape)
14. Any & All Home Storage Bags and Containers (such as Zip Lock Type Bags, sandwich bags, and temporary tupperware plastic containers)
15. Any & All Paper Towel and similar Paper Product Wrappers (Such as Scotts Paper Towels, Tissue Paper, Paper Napkins etc)
16. Any & All Tooth Paste Tubes, Dental Floss Devices, and used Toothbrushes (Such as Colgate, Crest, etc)
17. Any & All Glue Containers and Glue Sticks (Such as Elmer's)
18. Any & All Human Writing Instruments except Chalk and Crayons (Such as Used Up or Broken Pens, Sharpies, Markers, Highlighters, Magic Markers, and Mechanical Pencils, Wooden Pencils)
19. Any & All Beauty and Skin Care Product Tubes and Containers (Such as Aveeno and Aveda Skin Product Tubes, Neosporin Medicine Containers, Lip Stick Tubes, Cosmetic Cases,  Chap Stick Tubes, Shampoo Bottles, Deodorant Sticks and Sun Screen Tubes and Bottles)
20. Any & All Diaper Wrappers (such as Huggies, Pampers, g-Diaper and any sort of Baby Sanitation Wipe as well as Incontinence Pad Wrappers)
21. Any & All Cell Phones, MP3 players, Digital Cameras,  GPS Systems, Calculators, Printer and Toner Cartridges, and Laptop Computers including all cords and chargers
22. Any & All Cheese Wrappers (such as Kraft, Kroger, Sargento)
23. Any & All Tortilla, Tostada & Bread Wrappers (such as Mission Tortillas)
24. Any and All Home Cleaning Containers and Items (such as Method Packs, Windex, Pledge, Ajax, and Toilet Brushes, Tubes, Pistol Squeezers)
25. Any and All #5 & #6 disposable plastic drinking cup (Solo Cups)
26. Any and All Laundry and Dish Wash Detergent Briquette Bags (Dropps, Tide, Cascade)
27. Any and All Wine Pouches
28. Any and All Hummus Products (like Athenos Hummus)
29. Any and All Shoes
30. Any and All Cigarette & Cigar Waste including all the ashes, unburnt tobacco, filter stubs, plastic outer wrap, aluminum paper inner wrap. (Please place in an airtight plastic bag inside the outer package)

TerraCycle Inc. reached $7 million donated to schools and charities across the country and around the world with help from Mary B. Neal Elementary School in Waldorf.

Johnston students helped raise more than $7 million for charity through the TerraCycle Brigade Program.

Celebrate this Easter with a little upcycling flavor. I created this super simple project that from folded food wrapper. You can create it, too! You can download a PDF with the complete step-by-step over at DIY section on TerraCycle's website. When your basket is finished, load it up with your favorite sweet treats!

Waste Less, Save More by Precycling by Leah Blunt --> We’ve all heard the familiar phrase; 'reduce, reuse, recycle.' For many of us, recycling is a habit to which we have grown accustomed. It makes sense to find ways to reuse and recycle items so that they stay out of landfills and last as long as possible. But what about reducing the amount of waste of which you dispose in the first place? Enter 'precycling,' the proactive approach to the 'reduce' portion of our well-known saying. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generated over 250 million tons of waste in 2010. Though recycling trends are on the upswing, there is something to be said for avoiding waste to begin with. While recycling is a crucial piece of the sustainability puzzle, it also requires time, energy and resources. By precycling, you are finding ways to avoid unnecessary waste so that you will be contributing less material that gets recycled or tossed out. The precycling perk? It also saves money. Here are some wallet-friendly tips that help eliminate waste from your shopping habits. MOM Brands cereals are packaged using 75% less materials than the standard cereal box. Because the bags still need to be reused or recycled, MOM Brands has joined with Terracycle to help encourage proper end of life treatment for their product packaging. However, by eliminating the cardboard from the waste stream altogether, they have created a win-win for precyclers looking for low waste, low cost options.