Virtually everything you find on store shelves uses these materials in some form, and yet many of them are unrecyclable either because of their design or because the combination of materials used in their manufacturing makes them difficult to break down. But one company is steadily proving that it’s possible to recycle virtually everything we discard on a daily basis.

There’s a company that will recycle, basically, everything! TerraCycle wants your trash, and they will pay you (well, a nonprofit of your choice) to send it to them.

TerraCycle Madeline Irving, left, and Kalen Staver display their classroom’s TerraCycle setup. Nearly every classroom in Winnequah School is home to a small TerraCycle bin, and students recognize that items not able to be recycled, through either municipal recycling or TerraCycle, will pile up in a landfill.

Earth Heroes at School honorees in 2014 included:

• Vinnette Lang, parent volunteer at Ilako Elementary School in Auburn, co-founded the PTA’s Green Team, organized the school’s TerraCycle Brigade, starting the student Green Team, and organized the annual city-wide holiday lights recycling event.

Efforts to recycle packaging from student lunches have earned Warm Springs Intermediate School recognition by the TerraCycle recycling company. The company says the school is one of West Virginia's top recyclers of lunch kits—a pre-packaged meal that some students bring from home.

Local TV brigade hit.

Many of my invitations to TerraCycle are met with strong, no-thank-you affirmations, "I already recycle." "I've been recycling my entire life" (with a clear implication that the time is longer than I have been alive). A recycler is already traveling the right road to becoming a TerraCycler, but every single person may engage in TerraCycling and, for many reasons, it's not the same as recycling. One reason I would like to focus on is the concept of ZERO WASTE! A trash item sent to TerraCycle is fully re—used, recycled, re—purposed, or upcycled with no waste—nothing incinerated, nothing dumped into the earth, nothing permitted to quagmire into aquatic imbroglios. TerraCycle is committed to eliminating global waste by taking anything bound for a landfill and turning it into a functional new product—from back packs to park benches, cereal bags to building materials, fence posts to writing instruments, TerraCycle is changing the way the world sees trash and benefitting not-for-profits in the process. Beauty and personal care cases, containers, dispensers, tubes and bottles from items such as lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, shampoo and conditioner, bronzer, foundation, body wash, hand soap, lotion, shaving foam, powder, body lotion/cream, lip balm/gloss, face soap, face lotion, concealer; Brita pitchers, dispensers, bottles, faucet systems, all filters and packaging; standard cell phones, smart phones, and iPhones; cereal bags and plastic cereal bag liners; individual and large/outer flexible cheese packaging found on items such as shredded cheese, string cheese, individual slices, solid cheese blocks, deli—style sliced cheese and other large cheese packaging; extinguished cigarettes, cigarette filters, loose tobacco pouches, outer plastic packaging, inner foil packaging, rolling papers, ash; dairy tubs, seals, and lids from items such as yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese, butter and margarine, whipped topping, pudding, plastic ice cream tubs and lids; plastic diaper packaging, wipes outer plastic packaging, and individual wipes packaging; aluminum and plastic drink pouches, and baby food and drink pouches; laptop, tablet, e-reader, Ipod, MP3 player, camera, digital camera, camcorder, GPS unit, and graphing calculator e-waste; baby and toddler food pouches and caps; Elmer's glue sticks, bottles, and caps; any foil-lined energy bar wrappers, granola bar wrappers or protein bar wrappers; Entenmann's plastic pouches; tubs, lids, and seals from all hummus containers; all inkjet cartridges and many toner cartridges; plastic trays and lids, plastic film, outer wrapping, and packaging; all individual, multi—pack and family size snack bags; all No. 6 rigid cups; plastic tape dispensers and cores; all toothpaste tubes with caps, toothbrushes, toothbrush and toothpaste packaging, and floss containers; pens and pen caps, mechanical pencils, markers and marker caps, highlighters and caps, permanent markers and caps. Are you one of the people collecting TerraCycle items? Does your fridge magnet, office desk, or church bulletin have a current list of TerraCycle brigades? If not, why not? Easier to let someone else take the responsibility? As I challenged in this column last week, let's go beyond easy! Add your name, church, business or organization to the growing list of TerraCyclers! To check out what trash TerraCycle can take, review the details and pictures at www.CoyoteHowlingShopForaCause.com, or visit Coyote Howling and learn how to take your trash back from the landfills and use it to fund meals for children. Coyote Howling's designated nonprofit: Feed My Starving Children. Tonya Huber, PhD, is founder and owner of Coyote Howling Shop for a Cause Contact her at CoyoteHowlingNM@gmail.com 575-808-8320.

A local organization is mixing faith, and recycling. "Well we truly believe that God calls us to care for creation, and part of caring for creation is caring for the earth,” said Karen Neder with Earthkeepers. Karen helped found Earthkeepers back in 2007. It's a group open to any religion, but all with the same mission: to be more environmentally friendly. "As a way for churches in the Quad Cities area to get together and exchange ideas about greening their congregations,” said Karen. And Karen has gone above and beyond to make her church, Trinity Lutheran, a greenhouse of worship. She started by cultivating the crop of her fellow parishioners. Putting up a display teaching what can, and can't be recycled in the church's own recycling program. Karen said sometimes, it's been a challenge. "It's amazingly confusing for people,” she said. But then, just a couple of months ago, Karen took things to the next level. She discovered an online recycling program called Terracycle. “Terracycle is a program that I started here to encourage recycling of non–recyclables," said Karen. It's as easy as taking things that you didn't know you could recycle; makeup, Chapstick, a Brita filter, putting them into a box, and sending them off. "It's a website that you go to and you can join a specific brigade that's sponsored by a company,” said Karen. A brigade is a specific group of items you're recycling. For example, Kraft sponsors a cheese brigade, where you gather empty cheese wrappers. When enough are collected, Karen puts them in a box and ships them off to the company, where they're recycled. And you even get money for doing it. "Whatever you collect, when you send it into Terracycle, they will give you whatever you collect and the points can be turned into a small amount of money for a charity or a school,” said Karen. Karen chose Trinity Lutheran's preschool, Blessed Beginnings. "The response was so great from parents,” said Karen. A one woman show, Karen is merging faith and recycling into a perfect harmony for the future.

In honor of Earth Day, we ran a challenge on our Woodpellets.com Facebook page to find out about some uses for empty pellet bags. Some great prizes were given out (a free professional pellet stove cleaning and PelletBucks) but we also learned so many new ideas for how to repurpose bags. The winner uses her empty bags for sorting her TerraCycle Brigade recycling. It looks like she uses an empty diaper box for sorting as well! The Terracycle Brigade program collects previously non-recyclable or hard to recycle waste, with free shipping as well as a donation for each piece of garbage recycled. We loved that she takes extra time and care for not-so-simple recycling, and that our empty Cleanfire Douglas Fir pellet bags are a part of her process.

It's Hump Day!!  This means the week is halfway over, and that there are only 7 days left of students.  If you read my post from Monday then you know our school had a Green School Celebration that day.  I am totally taking this post to BRAG about how awesome our school is!! First, we are the FIRST and ONLY Green School in our county.  That includes the 17 elementary, 6 middle schools, and 5 high schools.  We were awarded this honor by theMaryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education and means that we use a "holistic, integrated approach to authentic learning that incorporates local environmental issue investigation and professional development with environmental best management practices and community stewardship".  We have been working ALL year to meet this goal, and I think we totally rocked it!!! Every grade level took on a different environmental project, everything from creating safe habitats for local animals to planting local plants, recycling and collecting rain water to use to water the landscaping.  Here's a run-down of what each grade level was responsible for: Kindergarten - Building and maintaining butterfly houses, participating in a TerraCycle Brigade to recycle Entenmann's Little Bite Pouches. 1st Grade - Building and maintaining bird houses, participating in a TerraCycle Brigade to recycle Elmer's glue sticks/bottles and Lunchables containers.