PTO is excited to announce that our school is going GREEN! We teamed up with a program called TERRACYCLE.  We are going to be collecting a number of items to recycle and earn CASH.  Each classroom will have a bin to place collected items, which may be brought from home or just saved from lunch/snacks at school.  Please consider getting involved as we strive to make God’s creation a beautiful masterpiece one community at a time.  Below is a list of all items we are going to collect.  PTO will keep everyone informed throw here as to our progress throughout the year.

We’re always on the hunt for new ways to protect Mother Earth and recycle anything we can. When we found TerraCycle we got pretty excited. We’ve recently partnered with TerraCycle who is on a mission to eliminate the idea of waste. The collected waste is then converted into new products, ranging from recycled park benches to upcycled backpacks. Here is a list of the items that we can now collect: Chip Bags – Any empty brand or size chip bag. Candy Wrappers – Any brand and size candy wrappers, excluding candy boxes or gum packaging. Toothpaste Products – Any brand used toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes and plastic toothbrush packaging, excluding cardboard. Writing Utensils – Any brand and any size pen, pencils, mechanical pencils, wooden pencils, markers and highlighters, sharpie and dry eraser markers; just to name a few. No crayons please. Thanks to the help of our File Creation team we’ve printed up some fun boxes around the office to collect these new items. If you’d like to know more about TerraCycle please visit their website.

Terracycle is a company that collects previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste and converts it into new products, ranging from recycled park benches to upcycled backpacks. They do this by creating waste collection programs, which are referred to as “Brigades”, for each particular waste item. The LIU Post Recycling Program is currently a member of 9 Brigades. These Brigades include: -Drink Pouch Brigade: Accepted waste includes aluminum drink pouches and plastic drink pouches such as Capri Sun, Kool-Aid Jammers, and Honest Kids. -Candy Wrapper Brigade: Acceptable waste includes individual candy wrappers, large candy bags, and multi-pack candy bags. -Cookie Packaging Brigade: Accepted waste includes cookie packaging like Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and Keebler Cookies. -Chip Bag Brigade: Accepted waste includes chip bags, tortilla chip bags, pretzel bags, etc. -Paired Shoe Brigade: Accepted waste includes pairs of women’s, men’s, and children’s shoes, which may include athletic sneakers, cleats, flats, high heels, dress shoes, boots, and fashion or casual sneakers. Unacceptable waste includes ski boots, roller skates, roller blades, ice skates, completely broken or ruined footwear, single shoes, rubber flip flops, and slippers. -Writing Instruments Brigade: Accepted waste includes pens, pen caps, mechanical pencils, markers, highlighters, and permanent markers. Pencils are NOT accepted. -Elmer’s Glue Crew Brigade: Accepted waste includes Elmer’s glue sticks, Elmer’s glue bottles, and Elmer’s glue tops. ONLY Elmer’s brands are accepted. -Scotch Tape Brigade: Accepted waste includes all plastic tape dispensers and plastic tape cores. -Solo Cup Brigade: Accepted waste includes specially marked plastic #6 cups. Please bring these items to the collection boxes located at the Hillwood Information Desk. For each item that is collected, Terracycle will donate 2 cents to LIU Post. This money will be added to LIU Post Recycling Scholarship. If you have any questions regarding our Terracycle collection efforts, please contact Raheem Barnes, the Student Coordinator of the LIU Post Recycling Program, at LIUPostRecycling@gmail.com For additional information about Terracycle, you may visit http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/

Old or broken drinking glasses. Burned-out incandescent light bulbs. Empty prescription-medicine vials. These are on an increasingly shortlist of common waste items that we can't put in our residential curbside recycling bin.   They are the unrecyclables.   That sounds almost criminal, doesn't it? Recycling has become so ingrained here in the Seattle area that we now expect to be able to recycle everything. When we can't recycle something, we want to know why.   Q: How about plastic or foil candy wrappers and chip bags? A: No municipal residential-recycling programs accept these. Some Seattle-area schools and nonprofits collect candy and snack packaging through programs offered by New Jersey-based TerraCycle, a for-profit company. TerraCycle funds these recycling programs through promotional partnerships with brands such as M&M's. Recyclability isn't everything. Reducing and reusing trumps recycling. But recycling certainly beats landfilling, and if a product or packaging is only "technically" recyclable, that doesn't help consumers. We're most likely to recycle when it's as easy as throwing something away.

I headed over to the Clark Lounge in the Campus Center where there was a wine and cheese reception for faculty members. I noticed on my way that the TerraCycle Brigade had put a collection bin in the common area.

The TCU Environmental Club works with Terracycle to help promote recycling

The university's environmental club and Residence Hall Association partnered with Terracycle to bring a new recycling contest to campus. The competition, which started after fall break, allows students to turn in materials such as candy wrappers, chip bag wrappers and juice boxes into collection boxes in their residence halls, said environmental club president Brooke Long.

Have you ever thought what happens to your Snickers bar package after you finish eating it. Most probably it will end up in a bin and from there it´s a one way ticket to the trash yard, right? Well there is a company that might take your snickers bar package and turn it into... well why not  a backpack. That company is called Terracycle, and snickers bar packaging is only a small piece of their story. It all started with worm poop The revolution began in 2001 when two freshmen at Princeton University Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer submitted a business plan to a contest sponsored by the Princeton Enterpreneurship Club. The following summer Szaky and Beyer made arrangements with Princeton Dining Services to take the dining hall waste and process it in their prototype „Worm Gin“. By 2002, the company had created a continuous flow process to take garbage and have it processed by worms into fertilizer. The products then were packaged worm poop used in soda bottles. Since then TerraCycle has grown into one of the fastest-growing green companies in the world. According to a company´s spokesperson Stacey Krauss TerraCycle believes that trash does not exist in nature and that it is their purpose to eliminate waste. „By collecting and finding ways to reuse traditionally non-recyclable materials, Terracycle is changing the way the world views waste,“ said Krauss. Terra is defined as The planet, Earth or land, whereas Cycle is recognized with recycling and upcycling and defined as any complete round or series of occurrences that repeats or is repeated. By recycling or upcycling items that would normally be sent to landfills, TerraCycle finds a way to help the environment and create a sustainable solution to waste. Upcycling is making trash valuable A backpack made of Snickers packaging has more value than the original packaging, once the product inside is gone. „Once the packaging has served its purpose and the candy has been safely delivered to a hungry consumer, the packaging is usually discarded, because it is not believed to have any value. At TerraCycle we find value in packaging as-is and can reuse it in almost its original state,“ said Stacey Krauss.

What do you think of this week's spotlight crafts? Do you have a favorite? Pieces Together Plaque Craft - Kelly explains how to make a unique gift using crafts sticks and puzzle pieces. M & M Candy Wrapper Gift Bag Craft - Follow these instructions, provided by TerraCycle, and learn how easy it is to recycle your empty candy wrappers into a fun gift bag.

 

Some of us are feeling a tad guilty about eating the kids' Halloween treats. Well, here's a way to atone -- we can recycle all those candy wrappers through an ongoing partnership between Mars candy and the eco-friendly company TerraCycle. "It's a free collection program for all kinds of candy wrappers, regardless of brands, regardless of type," said TerraCycle public relations manager Stacey Krauss. In a phone interview, Krauss told us how easy it is to help both the planet and the charity of your choice by joining the "candy wrapper brigade." Simply sign up on the TerraCycle website and designate which nonprofit you would like to receive the funds or points earned.