According to the Guilderland Elementary School Acting PTA President, Guilderland Elementary School raises money by upcycling Capri Sun juice pouches.  By simply offering a recycling container in a lunchroom, local schools and organizations can earn money and protect the environment. Starting healthy habits for body and earth can start early with Capri Sun.  Yes, that says Capri Sun.  Remember the sugary juice in bags that kids loved in the 80's?  For today's kids, Capri Sun offers 100% juice, recyclable pouches, and school or organization fundraising programs.  This is a win, win, win situation.

It looked like a cleaner form of dumpster diving as fifth graders at San Clemente's Truman Benedict Elementary School gathered juice pouches and chip bags from two big recycling bins. While other students played handball just yards away, the fifth graders boxed up trash that would soon be turned into backpacks, kites and other products. The process is called upcycling and it's part of a new Orange County Department of Education initiative to encourage schools to reduce waste. Schools across the county have been recycling for years, but the new Project Zero Waste OC initiative aims to pump up the volume on those programs, said Lori Kiesser, a Department of Education representative.

Pennsbury In a continuing efforts to "go green" at Makefield Elementary School, students and teachers have been working extra hard to recycle. Led by teacher Roberta Stafford, the Recycling Club's goal is to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible. The kids spend time each week collecting water bottles, soda cans, paper, cardboard and composted scraps from the cafeteria. The school has also shipped more than 3,200 Capri Sun packages, 100 Kashi packages and 75 chip bags to TerraCycle, a company that reuses packaging to make new products such as book bags that are sold at major retailers.

TerraCycle produces very cool consumer products from recycled food packaging. But for businesses trying to grow revenues in this “soft recovery” the coolest thing about TerraCycle is its creative business strategies for generating top-line revenue results with attractive profit margins. How it engage its customers is what makes TerraCycle’s strategy unique. For example, it “up-cycles” Capri Sun wrappers to create products like pencil holders that target the very school children who are the principal consumers of Capri Sun juices. Its customer engagement program involves encouraging school children to collect the wrappers as a fund raiser for their school and a path for learning about recycling. Beyond this being a brilliant social marketing example it also makes money. From a production-cycle perspective, TerraCycle takes a zero-cost waste stream and converts it into a product with attractive margins.

TerraCycle takes drink pouches, wrappers, corks, yogurt cups, chip bags and other waste. Each is shipped to a specific "brigade" which in turn takes the material and crafts it into unique and functional items for kids and adults. The recycling program allows almost any school or non-profit organization to save items, keeping them from landfill. TerraCycle will pay 2 cents or more for each item, giving the funds directly to the donating organization. Since the beginning of the 2009-10 school year, Sloman Primary has earned more than $325.

Sharpie, Paper Mate and EXPO have partnered with TerraCycle to collect and reuse pens, markers and other writing instruments in a way that helps schools, charities, and non-profits to raise funds. Groups that want to participate can print pre-paid shipping labels from TerraCycle’s website. The collected writing instruments are then shipped to TerraCycle. Once received, TerraCycle upcycles trashed pens into new products.

Nancy Baiche would have an entirely green school if she could, but for now she's happy believing that teaching the prekindergarten classes at Williams Ledger Elementary School about recycling could impact the world and maybe save the earth someday. "They love it," she said. "They're becoming little voices that I'm hoping in the future will become bigger voices." Recycling is part of the curriculum in prekindergarten classes every year, but this year the eight classes at Williams Ledger are getting hands on experience while earning extra money for the school. Baiche, a prekindergarten aide in Bernadine Wagner's class at Williams Ledger, said she was looking for lessons and educational tools to help her students understand recycling when she came across the TerraCycle program. "There's a lot of information out there for adults, but it's really hard to teach to a 3- or 4-year- old," she said. TerraCycle is a company that takes trash such as drink pouches and chip bags and turns it into products such as CapriSun tote bags and pencil bags made from cookie wrappers.

While recycling statistics show the U.S. making little strides every year, there are certain items that still fall in the "what the hell am I supposed to do with this?" category. Throwing them in the trash is never the best option, as many of these items, such as light bulbs and batteries, can be toxic. Don't let that burnt-out light bulb intimidate you-- If there's a will, there's a way to recycle everything from light bulbs to Capri Sun pouches. So if you will, here are some recycling options for those harder to recycle items.

The second grade students at Bonner Elementary School in Phoebe Bradberry, Amanda Kirkman, Wendy Bradberry, and Sloan Dills’ classes recently worked hard to earn money for the Summerville Miracle League. They found an awesome company named Terracycle that reuses empty juice pouches and chip bags to create new school supplies such as pencil pouches, book bags, lunch boxes, and folders. Juice pouches are made out of aluminum and pouches and chip bags are laminated with a plastic layer, which make them non-recyclable. This program still benefits the earth because it is preventing these items from piling up in the landfills.