We all have them. A collection of pens and markers that don't work anymore. Many people just throw them away. This year, in celebration of Earth Day, TerraCycle and Office Depot have a better solution. You can take your old pens, markers and mechanical pencils to local Office Depot for recycling. You will receive a coupon towards a new Sanford product which can be used for a new Sharpie, Expo or PaperMate. It will help the earth and you will get a discount, too.
This offer runs during Earth Week from April 17th to the 23rd. You can take any pen, marker or mechanical pencil to receive the coupon regardless of brand.
Foil bags
Potato chip bags and candy wrappers are among the hard-to-recycle items the New Jersey-based TerraCycle focuses on finding new uses for. The company enlists brigades of people worldwide to collect and turn in different types of trash that are then sent to innovative companies where they are transformed into household products, school supplies, gardening tools and even alarm clocks and picture frames. Learn more at
www.terracycle.net.
I am very excited by this development and commend Pepsi for their action and effort, [but] I fear it may be overstating things quite a bit. As I see it there are two main challenges to bio-plastics and compostable packaging.
The newest addition to our recycling program at home is Terracycle. This ubiquitous program has seeped into schools and churches all over the United States and in the process recruited more than 19 million people collecting items that once were thrown into the trash with no regard for the money these items could raise for institutions across the country. In our school alone, we have raised about $1,000 from such items as juice pouches, candy wrappers, baggies, and other assorted items that don't fit neatly into the usual paper, plastic and metal recycling programs.
