It’s not often that an educator finds inspiration on the back of a juice box, but that’s what happened to Tim Sarych. Sarych is a special education management aid at the Mille Lacs Academy School. Sarych read about the TerraCycle, a recycling program for schools, on a box of Capri Sun juice. After a bit of research, Sarych registered the MLA with the TerraCycle program. “I knew this was a fundraiser that our school could benefit from,” he said. “It helps the environment, and it engages the students in a positive community activity.” Sarych started the project last winter and slowly introduced the plan to his co-workers. In the months that followed he brought the program up to full speed. Students and staff collect candy wrappers, cheese packaging, used printer cartridges, coffee bags, empty drink pouches, old cell phones, cereal bags and a long list of other would-be trash. They box the recyclables up and send them to TerraCycle and receive between 2 cents and a dollar an item. TerraCycle also pays the shipping costs. The material collected by TerraCycle is turned into garbage cans, school supplies, playground equipment, flower pots, back packs, and a wide variety of other items. Students and staff are bringing packaging from home as well as collecting them at the school. “Two cents an item doesn’t sound like a lot,” Sarych said. “But it adds up quickly.” To date the program has brought in about $200 dollars and kept 61 boxes of waste out of the local landfills. “Throwing away a candy wrapper is like throwing away money,” Sarych said. For more information go to TerraCycle.net, or call Tim Sarych at (320) 532-6848. Photos by Rob Passons.

Students at a Michigan elementary school are raising money for their school, while keeping hard-to-recycle materials out of the waste stream. It’s called “upcycling” and at West Ottawa’s Pine Creek Elementary School, it’s becoming part of the school’s culture. “One of our focuses is incorporating environmental education into our curriculum and raise kids’ awareness,” said Principal Dave Gough. “We wanted to think about how we can problem solve and have a positive impact at the same time.” The school’s efforts are run through TerraCycle, a company that finds new uses for trash, turning otherwise unusable waste into things like coolers, picture frames and cleaning supplies. Students, teachers and staff members collect things like food wrappers and juice boxes and turn them over to TerraCycle, which transforms them into other, usable items.

The Bluffton Middle School is accepting certain trash for its upcycle program, a recycling-like initiative and fundraiser that earned the school more than $1,750 last year and about $700 so far this year. Unlike traditional recycling, upcycling, a term first created in 1994, does not break down products to incorporate them into other materials. Instead, upcycling is designed to essentially change the used product into a new product without breaking it down. Consider these examples from the TerraCycle website. homework folder lunchbox backpack stereo clip board

… unique “green” start up company. TerraCycle’s purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste. Because… if you think about it.. in nature waste does not exist.  Those are humans who have created non-recyclable waste. Non-recyclable for nature but recyclable for TerraCycle! TerraCycle –hereafter TC. How does it work? Basically TC creates waste collection programs, “brigades,” for all kinds of typically non-recyclable waste and turn the collected waste into new products, ranging from recycled park benches or garbage bins to upcycled backpacks, pencil holders or jewelry. Recycled means the waste is reformed into new material but upcycled means that the waste material is reused.

Welcome back to Rock Roundup, when we take a look back at Council Rock community happenings and give a sneak peek into what's coming up on the calendar. Here's the latest from Council Rock: Newtown Elementary School TerraCycle is a private business headquartered in Trenton, NJ.. which specializes in making consumer products from post-consumer materials, often reusing waste materials that are otherwise difficult to recycle. The Newtown Elementary School community collected close to 20,000 items for TerraCycle recycling during the 2010-2011 school year.