SCHOOLS ARE CEREAL SAVERS
You’ve probably seen them in the cereal aisle at the grocery store: bags of bargain cereal with one-off names like Cinnamon Toasters, Apple Zings and Honey Nut Scooters. The titan of bagged cereals, the Minneapolis, Minn.-based Malt-O-Meal, has found a niche in offering cereals almost identical to name-brand products from General Mills, Kellogg’s, Post and Quaker Oats at a reduced price. But where do all those cereal bags go once their sweet contents are consumed?
As it turns out, nine Springfield schools collect the bags for recycling – and they make a little cash for their efforts. The Malt-O-Meal Cereal Bag Brigade is a schools-only program sponsored by Malt-O-Meal and run by TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based start-up that pays a pittance for recyclable trash and makes it into new products like kites, durable totes and even fences.