With hundreds of students eating lunch every day, the teachers at Walker Elementary School used to see a lot of used drink pouches get thrown away. Now they earn two cents for every one of those pouches they collect and return to a company called, TerraCycle, who uses their non-recyclable waste to make affordable, eco-friendly products. This school year, the enthusiastic students at Walker have diverted nearly 4,000 pieces of waste from going into the landfills. “I have always been a big advocate of recycling and think this program is great.” said Lois Bradley, the P.E. teacher who signed the school up for the program. “I teach at a K-1 school that has snack each day.  As part of our policy individually wrapped items are required for parents to send in for snack.  I noticed that a lot of students were drinking Capri Sun drinks, and decided to sign up for the drink brigade.”

Have you heard of Terracycle yet? This company is so COOL! They take used trash in the form of drink pouches, toothpaste tubes, and sunscreen tubes and recycle them into great products like tote bags, cork boards and laptop cases. Isn't this a basic idea of going green???? There is a 2nd (or 3rd, 4th or 5th) life in almost everything we use! This company is such an awesome way to introduce this process to kids too! They drink a juice pouch and then use a tote bag made from juice pouches to go to school, the pool or where ever!

TerraCycle has tons of different brigades for all types of “garbage”. They collect juice pouches, candy wrappers, chips bags, yogurt cups and wine corks just to name a very few. All you have to do is go to their web site and sign-up for one of the brigades and you’re on your way. But what’s great is that it doesn’t just benefit TerraCycle (lots of free materials) it also benefits you, or more specifically, your organization. TerraCycle donates 2 cents per item back to the non-profit or school of your choice.

In more efforts to divert trash from Conway’s city landfill, Julia Lee Moore elementary has enrolled in a program to reuse non-recyclables to create new, functional products — and make a little money while they are at it. Brigades, a nationwide program, pays schools and non-profit organizations 2 cents per juice pouch, which parents opt for in convenience, and turns them into a range of upcycled products. Upcycling is the process in which disposable or discarded items are repurposed to make them valuable or useful. TerraCycle’s hope is that with the program, waste will be eliminated and according to their Web site, used to create innovative products from “materials others deem garbage.”

What have juice, cookies, or chips done for your schools, recently? Well, if your kids go to Garland Elementary, over the last year, the Parent Teacher Association has been collecting these empty bags, as well as Malt-O-Meal cereal bags, to fund projects like field trips. Melissa Skinner, this year’s Garland PTA president-elect, set up the recycling program after hearing about TerraCycle on a T.V. show highlighting Park City students who were recycling using a company based in Trenton, N.J. Skinner chose to focus on the following items: Nabisco cookie wrappers, Capri or Kool-Aid pouches, Frito-Lay chips bags and Malt-O-Meal cereal bags. So far, the school has collected 2,211 chip bags, 272 cookie wrappers, 2,222 drink pouches and after just starting the cereal bags in January, they have had 80 cereal bags. The total of $95.70 may not seem like much, but Skinner just sent another batch of bags to the company and will see another check at the end of April. Plus, she said TerraCycle pays the shipping expense. Skinner wants to get the word out, that anyone is encouraged to donate their used wrappers from these companies to Garland Elementary.

Students at Woodward Elementary School are learning the meaning of the adage, "one man's trash is another man's treasure." In the students' case, the trash consists of discarded juice pouches. For one New Jersey-based company, the little unwanted pouches represent the treasure. TerraCycle, a company founded by Princeton University students Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer in 2001, has matured from a small start-up showing people how to compost with earthworms to a global leader that takes garbage and "upcycles" it into usable products. Students earn two cents for their school for every empty juice pouch donated to TerraCycle. But they say one of the best parts is having the chance to see their used pouches transformed into backpacks.

Thanks to one of the Mega Sales at Kroger, our school is now raking in the pennies. How? By doing something that's good for the environment:  recycling. It all started when I bought five packages of Capri Suns at Kroger to fulfill part of a rebate I was working on. On the back of the package was information about Terracycle <http://www.terracycle.net/> , a company that has kept over 1.2 billion pieces of trash out of landfills while fashioning super cool backpacks, pencil cases, tote bags, trash cans, even cork boards! Even more amazing to me was that they would donate $ .02 per pouch collected, to the school or charity of my choice!

Last week on Facebook, I entered a contest all I did was leave my blog link (as a comment) on Terracycle's Fan Page. This morning I had a message saying that I won. Yay!!  I of course don't know what the prize is until it gets here. But I wanted to share this site with yall. I stumbled across Terracycle when I was ... yes I don't remember what I was doing. They recycle all kinds of things into new things. Some of these things will be available only next month(April) in Walmart Stores. Here is some more information about it; the information is copied in part with permission. "A whole bunch of brand new TerraCycle items will be available, during April for a limited time only, at every single Walmart across the country. Starting April 5th, nearly 60 TerraCycle products will be sold right next to the original items they were made from. Cheetos kites and tote bags made from Frito-Lay wrappers will be sold with bags of Frito-Lay chips, while notebooks and purses made out of skittles and M&M wrappers will be sold right next to bags of Mars Candy. For those of you unfamiliar with the trash to treasure company, TerraCycle, here is a little background information: TerraCycle collects traditionally non-recyclable waste from people all across the country by paying a non-profit of the person collectings choice, 2 cents for each piece they collect and mail to the company, with the use of a pre-paid shipping label they can print right from the TerraCycle website (www.TerraCycle.net). A majority of TerraCycle’s active participants are schools, because the students usually bring in the items TerraCycle collects during lunch; such as juice pouches, chip bags, and cookie wrappers, plus the money can go right back to the school. TerraCycle uses the waste it receives from its Brigade members to make hundreds of products that are not only eco-friendly, but are also very affordable because its made from waste!"

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.

The words “waste” and “garbage” have always had such negative connotations.  “You’re a waste of space.”  Schoolyard taunts about smelling like a garbage picker.  The phrase “garbage in, garbage out,” which refers to something made with low quality materials that will also yield a low quality final product. Tom Szaky, the 28 year old CEO of Terracycle, sees waste differently.  While he has brought garbage into his company, it seems that the outputs have been nothing short of valuable.  Szaky started Terracycle as a 19 year old Princeton student.  His idea?  Taking food waste from Princeton’s cafeterias, having worms digest it, and producing fertilizer on the other end.  The products were contained in old soda bottles.  After nearly going broke, he was helped out by an investor, which led to the company getting orders into two major retailers.