Newton's Jill Schon earned the distinction of one of the nation's top recyclers in the TerraCycle Solo Summer Celebration contest.

For their efforts, they will receive a two-cent per cup refund and a $60 prize from the contest sponsor, New Jersey-based Terracycle Inc.

This season, students can reduce waste by collecting one of the most ubiquitous tailgate accessories – red Solo cups – and sending them recycling pioneer TerraCycle.

Twelve-year-old Mathis LeBlanc of Massena, New York started collecting for TerraCycle's Drink Pouch Brigade in January, placing a container in his elementary school's cafeteria where kids can drop off their empty Capri Sun pouches. To date, Mathis has helped collect more than 11,000 drink pouches that he can send to TerraCycle at no cost, generating "points" that he can use to raise money for charity or his elementary school.

TerraCycle Triathlon of Trash Winner Gets Free UGA Semester Dedicated to the Late Jim McGown of Athens who passed away March 7 of this year. A Veteran of the U.S. Navy, and a tireless worker for the betterment of mankind whose labor and efforts were felt as far away as the Middle East! There is No Waste...Only Wasted Resources! Perhaps Earth Day Should be Every Day as we only have one Earth and without it we would be lost! St Gregory the Great Episcopal Church on the East Side has now earned almost $6,000 by keeping over 260,000 pieces of formally difficult to recycle trash out of the landfill. While Broward College near Ft. Lauderdale has now earned $15,000. Let's be honest how much sense does it make to bury unbiodegradable trash under ground from land we stole from Mother Nature? This is Varsity Recycling: TerraCycle.com is now accepting what we would normally think of as difficult or impossible to recycle. Things like Any & All: Chip Bags, Candy Wrappers, Glue Sticks, Sunscreen  and Lipstick Tubes, and now Any and All Cigarette Trash to include Stinky Cigarette Butts. Here is the Deal: From right now until August 15th, 2013 collect everything you can from the list below placing and separating each category in its own container such as a  Box, Bird Seed, or Pet Food Bag.  Feel free to get as large as you want but make sure a single average person can move the container around fairly easy through average doorways with the assistance of a hand truck. Items can be damp but not soaked and should be shaken or squeezed free of most food and liquid.(No Need To Scrub or Rinse Anything Out) Boxes and Packages will be opened for inspection. The winner with the most by weight wins a free Semester(In-State Tuition estimated to be $3,800)! Participants will meet for a Showdown on August 16th, 2013 at a location To Be Determined. For more information meet Captain PLaneT for a personal demonstration, description, and Q&A in the Odum School of Ecology Courtyard on Tuesday June 11th, 2013 at 4:00 pm! Or schedule me for a briefing at your location! If you are far away I can just email you all the UPS Shipping Labels for free shipping and TerraCycle will do the measuring. Just ask me for a label for specific brigades. The List:

1. Any & All Drink Pouches(Such as Capri-Sun, Kool-Aid to include the straws and straw wrappers)
2. Any & All Coffee Pouches(Such as Maxwell House, Equal Exchange Organic, and Starbucks)
3. Any & All Cookie and Cracker Wrappers(Such as Oreo and Keebler)
4. Any & All Energy or Breakfast Bar and Energy Food Wrappers(Such as Granola Bars, Breakfast Bars, Cliff Bars, Oddwalla Bars, Nut Bags, Kashi Bars)
5. Any & All Candy Wrappers(Such as M&Ms, Hershey, and Snickers) and Gum Wrappers(Such as Trident, Bubblicious, and Wrigley)
6. Any & All Chip and Salty Snack Bags(Such as Frito Lay, Pepperidge Farm, potato chip, crackers, pretzel, cheeto, nacho, and any that look and feel similar)
7. Any & All Lunch Kit Trays, Wrappers(such as Lunchables)
8. Any & All Dairy Tub Containers(Such as Stonyfield Farms, Chobani, Dannon) Butter Type Spread Containers (Such as Country Crock, Promise, and yes even the little baby single serve sizes along with baby coffee creamers) Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese, etc.
9. Sprout Brand Baby Food as well as Any & All Crushed Fruit Bags and Containers and Wrappers(GoGo Squeeze, Plum Organics, Gerber,  Chiquita, Ella's Kitchen, etc)
10. Any & All Cereal Bags(Such as Malt-O-Meal, Rice Crispies, and Honey Nut Cheerios)
11. Bear Naked Brand Granola and Cereal Product Wrappers
12. Any & All Corks Real and Fake Plastic from wine and other liquor bottles
13. Any & All Disposable Household Tape Dispensers (Such as Scotch Tape)
14. Any & All Home Storage Bags and Containers (such as Zip Lock Type Bags, sandwich bags, and temporary tupperware plastic containers)
15. Any & All Paper Towel and similar Paper Product Wrappers (Such as Scotts Paper Towels, Tissue Paper, Paper Napkins etc)
16. Any & All Tooth Paste Tubes, Dental Floss Devices, and used Toothbrushes (Such as Colgate, Crest, etc)
17. Any & All Glue Containers and Glue Sticks (Such as Elmer's)
18. Any & All Human Writing Instruments except Chalk and Crayons (Such as Used Up or Broken Pens, Sharpies, Markers, Highlighters, Magic Markers, and Mechanical Pencils, Wooden Pencils)
19. Any & All Beauty and Skin Care Product Tubes and Containers (Such as Aveeno and Aveda Skin Product Tubes, Neosporin Medicine Containers, Lip Stick Tubes, Cosmetic Cases,  Chap Stick Tubes, Shampoo Bottles, Deodorant Sticks and Sun Screen Tubes and Bottles)
20. Any & All Diaper Wrappers (such as Huggies, Pampers, g-Diaper and any sort of Baby Sanitation Wipe as well as Incontinence Pad Wrappers)
21. Any & All Cell Phones, MP3 players, Digital Cameras,  GPS Systems, Calculators, Printer and Toner Cartridges, and Laptop Computers including all cords and chargers
22. Any & All Cheese Wrappers (such as Kraft, Kroger, Sargento)
23. Any & All Tortilla, Tostada & Bread Wrappers (such as Mission Tortillas)
24. Any and All Home Cleaning Containers and Items (such as Method Packs, Windex, Pledge, Ajax, and Toilet Brushes, Tubes, Pistol Squeezers)
25. Any and All #5 & #6 disposable plastic drinking cup (Solo Cups)
26. Any and All Laundry and Dish Wash Detergent Briquette Bags (Dropps, Tide, Cascade)
27. Any and All Wine Pouches
28. Any and All Hummus Products (like Athenos Hummus)
29. Any and All Shoes
30. Any and All Cigarette & Cigar Waste including all the ashes, unburnt tobacco, filter stubs, plastic outer wrap, aluminum paper inner wrap. (Please place in an airtight plastic bag inside the outer package)

TerraCycle has found a way to reuse and upcycle plastic waste into new products. The polystyrene in the hundreds of plastic cups I just shipped to TerraCycle will be used to make backpacks, trashcans, containers and more. In addition to plastic cups, TerraCycle also accepts un-recyclable chip bags, CapriSun drink pouches, Lunchables and practically any other plastic you can name, including iPods, computers, and old cell phones. TerraCycle rewards its plastic donors by typically giving them 2 cents per unit of waste that is sent to them. TerraCycle recommends donors donate this money to charity. Since 2001, the company has been able to provide more than $5 million in charitable donations. Who doesn’t like selling trash for money? Through its upcycling program, TerraCycle has revolutionized the recycling industry. Although trash still carries a negative stigma, TerraCycle is beginning to debunk the myth that whatever we throw away is no longer useful. Every day, Americans discard plastic products that took more energy and water to make than the value they provided to the consumer. Producing bottled water requires up to 2,000 times more energy than drinking tap water, yet Americans remain addicted to plastic bottles. TerraCycling is easy, efficient and profitable. Through its upcycling program, TerraCycle has revolutionized the recycling industry. Although trash still carries a negative stigma, TerraCycle is beginning to debunk the myth that whatever we throw away is no longer useful.

Local environmental awareness nonprofit Experience Green will move its annual Earth Day celebrations from Hilton Head Island to Bluffton this month. Instead of taking place at Shelter Cove Community Park on Hilton Head as it did the last two years, the third annual celebration will be at Carson Cottages on Calhoun Street in Old Town. The festivities -- which include cooking demonstrations, live music and an obstacle course -- will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 27. Admission is free. Abby Wirth, program manager for Experience Green, said the organization moved the celebration to Bluffton to try to expand its reach.

Becker first found out about TerraCycle on a Keebler cookie wrapper. Shortly afterwards, she read an article about the company in Parade Magazine, and then Becker got busy.   Now many items thought to be difficult to recycle are being collected and Becker has a lot of help.   +Save Second Base team member Sandy Wilmot and Becker's sister-in-law, Deanna Becker, coordinated efforts at schools to collect snack chip bags. Some local and area Subway and Head West restaurants are collecting bags in decorative pink boxes.   +Becker's daughter, Danielle Love, who operates Love's Hair Shack in Macon, Ill., and sells Mary Kay beauty products, recently held a "Trash Bash," encouraging anyone to bring in old mascara and lipstick containers and other skin care and makeup containers.   +Last summer, Unser and some friends and family members collected over 1,750 red Solo Cups from the Morrisonville Picnic and Homecoming. The Springfield Sliders baseball team held a similar promotion, with Unser collecting the refuse in designated boxes.   Becker and other members of her Relay For Life team, Save Second Base, have signed up for a number of other collection items, or "brigades," including dairy tubs (cottage and cream cheese and yogurt and margarine containers), cheese packaging (single slice and string cheese wrappers), energy bar wrappers, ink jet cartridges and cell phones.

Last fall, The Daily Tar Heel’s editorial board wrote that Greeks, as an entire subset of UNCstudents, don’t recycle. This board mentioned the Greek Sustainability Council, but did not acknowledge its accomplishments/goals regarding sustainable living in the Greek community. The reporter claimed Greeks don’t recycle evidenced by cans littering some fraternities’ lawns. Although cans may sit around for longer than some homeowners would tolerate, this does not mean they are thrown in the trash. Recently, Pi Kappa Phi began recycling Solo cups, through a company called TerraCycle.