Launched in September, Wassom has partnered with TerraCycle, an international upcycling and recycling company that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging and products and repurposes the material into affordable, innovative products, according toterracycle.com.

Her salon now participates in the TerraCycle’s Beauty Brigade, where up to 40 different types of beauty products can be collected and sent in. They include: shampoo and conditioner bottles, soap tubes and dispensers, foundation packaging, body wash containers and much more.

A new program has been brought onto campus, the TerraCycle Beauty Brigade, which is headquartered in Trenton. This organization began by producing organic fertilizer known as “worm poop,” but is now also focusing on recycling waste into various products to be sold. TerraCycle is widely known as a leader in the collection and reuse of non-recyclable, post-consumer waste. Beauty Brigade bins are located in most residence hall bathrooms on campus.

Balfour Beatty Communities partnered with TerraCycle, a program that brings communities together to help build a sustainable future through: upcycling, recycling and donation efforts. Tyndall provides recycling for 1 and 2 plastics, newspaper, cardboard, aluminum, etc. Consumers can help eliminate overflowing landfills by collecting normally hard-to-recycle products and packaging.

Be beautiful and environmentally savvy while you're at it. Recycle your old beauty products by shipping them to Terra Cycle (you can download their pre-paid UPS shipping packages online so it's completely free). They'll take your old beauty products and transform them into something new.

One group of students worked with Sarah Vorreiter, a resident assistant in Lincoln Avenue Residence Hall on a floor designated as a Sustainable Living and Learning Community whose students tend to care more about environmental issues. Vorreiter had already initiated a recycling program with TerraCycle, an organization that collects trash and transforms it into sellable products, but participation had been low to nonexistent. She wanted the group from Kuo's class to help her expand the program and encourage more students to participate by recycling the specific kinds of trash that the company accepts. "We saw that there was no pre-existing advertising or other visible prompts to encourage students to participate," said Nick Musso, one of the students in the group. In order to solve the problem, the team of students decorated the large receptacles in the common trash collection room. But they found that one of the biggest obstacles to recycling was that the students were reluctant to take their trash down the hall to that special receptacle. "We were able to get boxes free from the Lincoln Avenue Residence dining hall," Musso said. "We stapled a flyer about the program to the boxes and delivered one to each room on the floor. Having a box right in their room made it more convenient for them to participate." The group also put flyers and collection bins in the women's shower areas, making it convenient for them to recycle empty shampoo and other beauty care product containers. "The students did a good job of thinking through where and how the residents use the products," Kuo said. "Putting the recycling bins in locations that are convenient made it easy for people to participate." The team also generated enthusiasm for the program with a pseudo competition. They set goals for the number of chip bags, dairy and beauty product containers, and candy wrappers the floor would collect in a three-week period of time and displayed colorful posters in the dorm to track the progress. The program resulted in 42 times more recycling of chip bags and 36 times more beauty care products than was recorded by Vorreiter from the months before.

FARMINGTON - Volunteers have been as busy as Santa’s elves at the United Way of the Tri-Valley Area this fall. During this season of thanks, it is important to recognize the impact that many generous volunteers are having in Greater Franklin County. TerraCycle Under the leadership of volunteer Sarah Martin, and UMF intern Joe Dignam, TerraCycle was launched. In this program various products – from shampoo bottles to foil-lined granola bar wrappers – are sent to TerraCycle headquarters in New Jersey where they are recycled into other products or up-cycled into functional art such as juice box tote bags. TerraCycle pays money for the products that are shipped to them (for free) so the environment benefits as well as the United Way!

This year, we’re focusing on that first step, of igniting student interest and shifting perspectives of fashion to reflect personal values. We’re really excited about upcoming and ongoing initiatives to do so, such as our successful “Stripe Swap” clothing swap, our Beauty Brigade cosmetic waste recycling/upcycling campaign with TerraCycle and Copper River Salon and Spa, our newly conceived SFI Magazine, and our 2013 Princeton Fashion Week.

FARMINGTON - The scene on the green today at the University of Maine at Farmington was all about finding things that were thrown away that should have been recycled. The annual event was expanded further this year to include a new program that also generates support for local charities.   At the event sponsored by the UMF Sustainable Campus Coalition, trash generated in residence halls over a 24-hour period are collected to determine how much could have also been recycled.   The coalition has been working with the Sandy River Recycling Association to pull  items for recycling at the transfer station and, at the same time, items  for possible use by Everyone's Resource Depot on campus.  ERD, a non-profit organization, takes recycled goods and offers them for creative reuse, such as art projects and various teaching tools. A nominal fee is charged to support the program.   Another new recycling effort at UMF was added last spring. Items like chip and candy wrappers, solo plastic cups and shampoo bottles are collected and sent to TerraCycle, which turns them into usable products like backpacks and park benches. In turn, TerraCycle pays 1 or 2 cents per item, with all profits coming back to UMF going to the local United Way.   Since the program began, $215 has been raised for United Way of the Tri Valley's charitable agencies and organizations it supports.   Sarah Martin, an adjunct professor in the Department of Community Health and Recreation, came up with the idea of UMF students working with TerraCycle to not only expand the recycling effort on campus, but to also benefit a local charity. UMF student Joe Dignam, a third-year environmental policy and planning major, is an intern working with Martin and United Way's executive director, Lisa Laflin to coordinate the program.   "When I heard about TerraCycle, I thought, wow, we have to do this," Martin said.   The students and faculty sorting trash today found all kinds of recyclable items that were pulled and resorted into categories that will be sent to ERD, the transfer station and there was a good-sized bag that will go to TerraCycle.   "We want to see the percentage of items that could have been recycled," said Luke Kellett, who is UMF's part-time sustainability coordinator and lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.   At last year's event they found that 25 percent of the trash could have been recycled. Displaying the trash for all to see at noontime on the campus green helps bring awareness of the recycling effort to the forefront.   "We hope to see progress this year and be below 20 percent," Kellett said. Find out more about TerraCycle here. Find out how you can donate your items to United Way of the Tri Valley Area here.