It’s hard to imagine that anyone would get excited about sorting trash. But each Friday, the third graders at
Newtown Elementary School beg to do just that.
In fact, they like it so much that they forgo recess just to sift through used drink pouches, chip bags, and snack wrappers.
There is a reason for their enthusiasm. The students are recycling for TerraCycle, a Trenton-based company that accepts certain types of waste to make products like bags, picture frames, toys, trashcans, and more.
Best of all, the school gets money in return for the products they send in to recycle.
The school began its effort in October, after parent Kathy Skalish learned about the initiative. “I’m a recycling junkie,” Skalish said, adding she worked with the school’s administration to make the program happen.
So far, the school has collected more than 8,350 drink pouches, which TerraCycle uses to make tote bags and backpacks. They’ve also collected more than 4,200 snack bags and more than 450 Ziplocs, which they’ve just begun recycling. In return for their efforts, TerraCycle gives them 2 cents an item, or $260 since October.
TerraCycle bins are located throughout the hallways and in the cafeteria.
Esta sociedad previamente se estableció en Norteamérica. El programa educará a la población sobre la conservación del Medio Ambiente y proporcionará recursos financieros a escuelas y organizaciones sin fines de lucro participantes para poder ser utilizados en beneficio de la comunidad.
One company is offering consumers a way to reduce their household garbage while earning money for schools or charities. Through free collections called Brigades, upcycling pioneer TerraCycle is paying for packaging waste from household staples- from the bathroom to the kitchen to the classroom.
Many major brands are getting on board with upcycling. Scott Tissue and Huggies are sponsoring programs to collect paper packaging waste from paper products and diapers. And Colgate and TerraCycle have partnered to collect used toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.
TerraCycle (www.terracycle.net) es una compañía que representa a una nueva generación poniendo un especial interés en causas sociales y el impacto ambiiental. En 2001, el estudiante universitario Tom Szaky fundó TerraCycle con la esperanza de construir una nueva y más responsable forma de hacer negocios. Desde entonces, TerraCycle ha revolucionado la industria haciendo productos respetuosos del medio ambiente y al alcance de sus consumidores y a partir de materiales de desecho.
Jag har sökt i forumet och blir lite förvånad att jag inte hittar något om återvinning av kaffekapslar av olika märken. Ska själv köpa en kapselmaskin och vill gärna göra ett så miljöriktigt val som möjligt.
At the beginning of the school year, I volunteered to head a recycling campaign at Ethan's school called TerraCycle. It's a very cool company started by a guy who didn't like throwing things away and wanted to find a purpose for everything that would normally sit in a landfill. They have a whole list of things they take, and recycle into new products that you can find many stores now a days. The best part of the program is that you can mail in your "trash" (they pay shipping) and they donate $0.02 per qualifying item to a charity of your choice or school of your choice.
Student teams launched a new student-led service learning campaign designed to make Lawrence Intermediate School a "greener" school by enlisting all of their peers and the staff in a school-wide recycling competition.
As the students announced during Monday’s assembly, each class will be graded on the students’ recycling skills by the Leaders of the Future program members. Each classroom will earn points for putting the right materials in each of three buckets: one for paper; one for juice pouches, chip bags and water bottles; and the third for regular trash.
The class that earns the most points for correctly recycling will earn an ice cream party. The competition will run through the rest of the school year with winning classes being announced on a monthly basis. In the case of a tie, each class will earn an ice cream party. This announcement generated a lot of excitement in the school cafeteria.
The students also announced a partnership between the school and
TerraCycle. The Trenton-based company will recycle the juice pouches and chip bags collected by the students and will donate to the school 2 cents for each pouch and bag. With 900 students in the school, that can quickly add up to some extra money, which the school hopes to use to buy new reusable plastic lunch trays rather than throwing away hundreds of Styrofoam trays every day at lunch.
Ran out of ink? Do not throw away that used pen, though. Three major writing brands are encouraging the public to reuse pens, markers and other used writing instruments through a recycling program with a social conscience. Newell Rubbermaid Office Products, maker of Sharpie, EXPO and Paper Mate products, has partnered with upcycling company TerraCyle to launch the unique program. Instead of throwing away your old pens, bring them to collection centers called Writing Instrument Brigades which will be set up at participating locales. TerraCvcle will then dissemble or reprocess the collected instruments to make new products. In turn, Newell Rubbermaid will give two cents to a school, community group, charity or nonprofit organization of the participant’s choice for every writing instrument collected. Overall, the collection efforts will reduce landfill proliferation, educate and inspire consumers to get involved and provide much needed funding to schools and nonprofit groups nationwide. "Keeping one pen or marker out of a landfill may seem like a small contribution, but multiply that by the estimated $5 billion writing instruments sold in the United States each year and it is a big opportunity to reduce waste to landfills," said Ben Gadbois, president of Newell Rubbermaid which produces markers, highlighters, art and office essentials. "TerraCycle offers us an innovative way to repurpose writing instruments after their useful life has expired," he added. Interested parties may sign up with TerraCycle to establish a Brigade location and then select the school, charity or nonprofit group to which they want their collection funds directed. Each Brigade prints a prepaid shipping label from TerraCycle's website to ship the collected writing instruments to TerraCycle.
- Katrice R. Jalbuena
