Ripon College is a top state collector of hair care, skin care and cosmetic product packaging for the Personal Care and Beauty Brigade, a free, national recycling program created by Garnier and TerraCycle. By collecting used personal care and beauty packaging, the college has helped to divert 8,300 units of waste from landfills.

Earth Day Every Day and MLK Children's Center--- Martin Luther King Children’s Center, a school district before and after school program on the campus of MLK K-8 Elementary School, collects a variety of items for recycling with TerraCycle.  The Children’s Center collected drink pouches, used toothbrushes, empty toothpaste tubes, empty beauty bottles, cheese wrappers along with dairy tub containers and sends them postage paid to TerraCycle.  MLK Children’s Center earns about $.02 per item. TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. TerraCycle’s purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, then a 20-year-old Princeton University freshman, TerraCyle began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid worm poop in used soda bottles. Since then Terracycle has grown into one of the fastest growing green companies in the world. Terracycle is creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable waste.  MLK Children’s Center is just one group of 20 million people collecting waste in over 20 countries. TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market.  The goal is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that today must be sent to a landfill. So far, MLK Children’s Center has sent in 18,146 drink pouches alone. Staff, students and families collect these items from their homes along with collection tubs in the school cafeteria at lunchtime. It’s a great way we celebrate Earth Day everyday! Good for the environment, community and especially the children. Here are some accolades from the students: “Terracycle is cool because we help the environment by recycling our trash.” — Leiomi Gastinell, sixth grader “It’s so easy to save and bring in the items.” — Alyson Eystad, fourth grader “It’s a good way to help the environment and the children’s center without doing anything hard or extreme.” — Elise Ledesma, sixth grader