St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church in Athens is hosting its first TerraCycle Triathlon of Trash through Aug. 15. The community is asked to gather trash from the list included here below and bring it to the TerraCycle Triathlon of Trash Showdown on Aug. 16 at a location to be determined. The person that brings the most trash, by weight, will win a free semester at the University of Georgia — in-state tuition only, estimated at $3,800. Trash that will be accepted includes: Drink pouches, straws and straw wrappers, coffee pouches, cookie and cracker wrappers, energy bar, breakfast bar and energy food wrappers, candy and gum wrappers, chip and pretzel bags, all lunch kit trays and wrappers, dairy containers, Sprout brand baby food and crushed fruit bags, containers and wrappers, cereal bags, Bear Naked brand granola and cereal product wrappers, wine corks, disposable household tape dispensers, plastic sandwich bags and temporary plastic containers. Also, wrappers from toilet paper, napkins and paper towels, toothpaste tubes, dental floss devices and used toothbrushes, glue containers and glue sticks, all writing instruments except chalk and crayons, beauty and skin care product tubes and containers, diaper wrappers, cheese wrappers, tortilla, tostada and bread wrappers, home cleaning containers and items, plastic drinking cups, laundry and dish wash detergent briquette bags, wine pouches, hummus containers and cigarette and cigar waste including ashes, unburnt tobacco, filter stubs, plastic outer wrap and aluminum paper inner wrapping. St. Gregory also will accept all cellphones, MP3 players, digital cameras, GPS systems, calculators, printer and toner cartridges and laptop computers including all cords and chargers, and all shoes. For information on how to package the trash, about the competition, about TerraCycle and more, call Andrew Lane at (706) 296-6631 or emailandrew.s.lane@us.army.mil.

[Episcopal News Service] Georgia Army National Guard Capt. Andrew Lane is a man on a mission. If it’s recyclable, “Captain PLaneT” aims to keep it out of the local landfill – and earn cash for his parish while he’s at it.   Lane launched a Tithing with Trash program at St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church in Athens, Georgia, when he returned home from a deployment in Afghanistan in 2010. Since then, the congregation has earned nearly $4,800 collecting hard-to-recycle items such as empty toothpaste tubes and Solo Cups and sending them to TerraCycle in Trenton, New Jersey, to earn 2 cents per item. TerraCycle, in turn, recycles or “upcycles” the trash – turning it into “green” products such as backpacks fashioned from Lay’s potato chip bags.   “They’re not just doing it to hug trees or sing ‘Kumbaya.’ They’re turning it into artwork or consumer products,” Lane said.   The nonprofit TerraCycle partners with some of the world’s largest companies, who sponsor collection programs for particular waste streams – say, spent writing utensils or empty tape dispensers, explained Lauren Taylor, U.S. public relations director. Some sponsor only collection of their brands’ trash, while others accept any related items. Kraft’s “dairy tub brigade,” for example, takes all manner of dairy-product tubs, lids, foil tops and other packaging.   Individuals such as Lane sign up to join a sponsored trash “brigade,” collecting and shipping specified items via United Parcel Service for free to TerraCycle and receiving “points” they turn into cash. “The money earned needs to go to a charity,” Taylor said. “Somebody can’t just decide this could be a great side job for them.” TerraCycle “upcycles” some trash into useable products such as this backpack created from Lay’s potato chip bags. Photo/TerraCycletoday   “The majority of the people who collect for us are schools,” she said. They set up lunchroom collection points – juice-drink pouches here, candy wrappers there – often after a parent or teacher realizes how much trash is being pitched and thinks, “We’re throwing money away.”   It’s hard to quantify, but churches also participate, and St. Gregory is one of a handful of Episcopal churches signed up to benefit from TerraCycle trash, Taylor said. “We definitely know Andrew because he is just so energetic and just loves our programs and really motivates people to collect. … He is definitely among the most highly motivated.”   Lane is a sustainability evangelist.   “It’s really powerful, because we’re the only creatures in existence that we know of that generate trash that we have to pay someone to haul off,” he said. Without addressing sustainability issues, he said, “for our grandkids it could be deep, deep, deep trouble.”   “We might actually trash this planet and poison its water or run out of water … without an epidemic or a war.”   Lane has given diocesan council presentations about TerraCycle and met Diocese of Atlanta Bishop-elect Robert Wright while separating food waste at the Mikell Camp and Conference Center. “He actually came and shook my hand. He said, ‘I see you’re not actually just speaking; you’re a man of action.’”   In Athens, Lane is lobbying a Kroger grocery store to let the church maintain a collection container for TerraCycle trash. At St. Gregory, parishioners place items in assorted labeled bins.   “I see people carrying in their containers and standing out there and sorting stuff out in Andrew’s elaborate bins,” said parishioner Lois Alworth, a member of the church’s Green Guild/Creation Keepers committee that Lane chairs. “There’s not a whole lot that the church itself uses that TerraCycle takes. What we get is what people bring from home.”   “We all laugh and say because we’re Episcopalians everybody has lots of wine corks,” she said. “TerraCycle takes really odd things, [like] toothpaste containers, when they’re empty, and old toothbrushes.” Every four to six weeks, committee members gather after church for a “box-up event” to package the TerraCycle items for shipping, she said.