Protecting the Planet for Baby Contest: TerraCycle® and Sprout® Organic Baby Food want to know why you are “Protecting the Planet for Baby.” They are looking for the most inspiring and creative reasons to grow a healthy world for a healthy baby. Tell them in Sprout’s “Protecting the Planet for Baby” essay contest for the chance to win prizes from TerraCycle and and Sprout®. How To enter?: The Protecting the Planet for Baby contest is open to all parents who are making a positive difference for the environment and for their baby. You don’t have to be enrolled in a TerraCycle Brigade® Program. Were you moved by a trip to Yellowstone and want your baby to be able to have the same experience? Do you want your baby to be able to see a polar bear in the wild? Hope he will be able to visit a rainforest? Want her to have cleaner air to breathe? We want to hear about it!

La misión de TerraCycle es eliminar la idea de la basura. TerraCycle es una empresa que tiene dentro de su misión el compromiso con el medio ambiente y con la comunidad. Trabajamos en la recuperación de materiales difíciles de reciclar y donamos dinero por cada envase recuperado para organizaciones sin fines de lucro y escuelas que sean elegidas como beneficiarias por los Equipos de recolección participantes.

A company named Terracycle collects various and sundry kinds of waste to divert it from the landfill,  to use it in new ways, and to try and make a buck.

Old Navy and TerraCycle, an international company known for turning hard-to-recycle packaging into eco-friendly products, have partnered up and came up with a great nationwide program. The outcome of their collaboration is a month long drive to collect flip-flops and recycle them into playgrounds that will be donated to four communities around the country.

Shoppers at the Old Navy store in Davenport can participate in a nationwide recycling program by bringing in used flip-flops. From now through Saturday, used flip-flops may be placed in collection bins found in the store. TerraCycle, an international upcycling and recycling company, will recycle them into playground equipment, which will be donated to communities around the country. More information is available at www.terracycle.net.

  The company is also conducting a consumer contest directed at classrooms with TerraCycle, which since 2009 has turned empty Malt-O-Meal bags into new products. The contest asked classrooms to show how they are helping the earth for a chance to win $2,500 for their school. The entry portion of the contest is now closed, but consumers can vote on the ideas through May 15 on Malt-O-Meal's Facebook page. TerraCycle and Malt-O-Meal also have an ongoing program called the Cereal Bag Brigade. Consumers can send in empty cereal bags. TerraCycle will convert the bags into innovative products, including tote bags and park benches. For each cereal bag shipment sent to TerraCycle, consumers awarded TerraCycle points, which can be redeemed for a payment of $0.02 per bag for their school.

  Kraft Foods' string cheeses -- branded Polly-O on the East Coast and Kraft elsewhere in the country -- are teaming with Six Flags Entertainment Corp. for a multi-platform "Twisted Fun" promotion this summer. The promotion also brings in a sustainability element, through a partnership with the TerraCycle, Inc. "upcycling" company.

Where other people see trash, Tom Szaky sees raw materials. An empty yogurt cup is a plant pot for a nursery. A juice pouch is fabric for a backpack. Disposable plastic cups? Park benches, naturally.

BANGOR, Maine — Old Navy and TerraCycle are partnering in “The Flip-flop Replay” recycle program to build community playgrounds through May 21 at Old Navy, 480 Stillwater Ave. in Bangor. The community is encouraged to participate by stopping by an Old Navy store to deposit old flip-flops in designated bins to be reused to help build playgrounds around the country. For more information, call 990-2073.