According to the Guilderland Elementary School Acting PTA President, Guilderland Elementary School raises money by upcycling Capri Sun juice pouches.  By simply offering a recycling container in a lunchroom, local schools and organizations can earn money and protect the environment. Starting healthy habits for body and earth can start early with Capri Sun.  Yes, that says Capri Sun.  Remember the sugary juice in bags that kids loved in the 80's?  For today's kids, Capri Sun offers 100% juice, recyclable pouches, and school or organization fundraising programs.  This is a win, win, win situation.

At the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, a pop up shop has taken over the space at 8th Avenue and 41st Street. This once empty retail space is now home to TerraCycle‘s Green Up Shop. This innovative store will feature TerraCycle’s full line of over 100 products literally made from common waste materials such as chip bags, food wrappers, yogurt cups, glue bottles and writing instruments. In addition to selling its affordable, fun products made from waste, TerraCycle will use the space to collect over 30 different non-recyclable items, turning the store into the world’s largest upcycling center. Consumers who drop off waste will be given a discount on the products they purchase at the Shop.

I just discovered this site. No, you will not make money, but you can help a charity with your trash! It's free to join and it's going towards a good cause! I'm asking y'all to join my team and collect juice pouches, chip bags, candy wrappers, cookie bags, etc. They even provide shipping labels for you to ship the items to them! If you join my team, I do NOT get any money or anything special. You're just helping me collect for a local charity in New Orleans called Cambodia Children's Sanctuary  which helps out abandoned children and such. For each of the items you send in, they donate $0.02 to the charity. It may not seem like a lot but with all my followers I know we can make a difference! It's free to join, you're getting rid of trash and recycling at the same time as well as helping a very worthy charity!

The words “waste” and “garbage” have always had such negative connotations.  “You’re a waste of space.”  Schoolyard taunts about smelling like a garbage picker.  The phrase “garbage in, garbage out,” which refers to something made with low quality materials that will also yield a low quality final product. Tom Szaky, the 28 year old CEO of Terracycle, sees waste differently.  While he has brought garbage into his company, it seems that the outputs have been nothing short of valuable.  Szaky started Terracycle as a 19 year old Princeton student.  His idea?  Taking food waste from Princeton’s cafeterias, having worms digest it, and producing fertilizer on the other end.  The products were contained in old soda bottles.  After nearly going broke, he was helped out by an investor, which led to the company getting orders into two major retailers.

The words “waste” and “garbage” have always had such negative connotations.  “You’re a waste of space.”  Schoolyard taunts about smelling like a garbage picker.  The phrase “garbage in, garbage out,” which refers to something made with low quality materials that will also yield a low quality final product. Tom Szaky, the 28 year old CEO of Terracycle, sees waste differently.  While he has brought garbage into his company, it seems that the outputs have been nothing short of valuable.  Szaky started Terracycle as a 19 year old Princeton student.  His idea?  Taking food waste from Princeton’s cafeterias, having worms digest it, and producing fertilizer on the other end.  The products were contained in old soda bottles.  After nearly going broke, he was helped out by an investor, which led to the company getting orders into two major retailers.

Price: $14.99 These iPod speakers are made with wrappers from food conglomerate Mars that would have gone to waste. The speakers come in different designs, either M&M wrappers, Skittles or Starburst (pictured here). The speakers don’t require batteries or need to be plugged into an outlet, making them safer for the environment.

The Terracycle fertilizers caught my eye on Gardeners.com. They are packaged in recycled soda bottles, first of all. The fertilizers are made from worm poop. These worms are fed an all natural, organic diet. It doesn’t smell at all and is safe to use. I bought the All-Purpose Fertilizer and Orchid Fertilizer and have been using both with success. They are $7.95 each.

It looked like a cleaner form of dumpster diving as fifth graders at San Clemente's Truman Benedict Elementary School gathered juice pouches and chip bags from two big recycling bins. While other students played handball just yards away, the fifth graders boxed up trash that would soon be turned into backpacks, kites and other products. The process is called upcycling and it's part of a new Orange County Department of Education initiative to encourage schools to reduce waste. Schools across the county have been recycling for years, but the new Project Zero Waste OC initiative aims to pump up the volume on those programs, said Lori Kiesser, a Department of Education representative.

Pennsbury In a continuing efforts to "go green" at Makefield Elementary School, students and teachers have been working extra hard to recycle. Led by teacher Roberta Stafford, the Recycling Club's goal is to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible. The kids spend time each week collecting water bottles, soda cans, paper, cardboard and composted scraps from the cafeteria. The school has also shipped more than 3,200 Capri Sun packages, 100 Kashi packages and 75 chip bags to TerraCycle, a company that reuses packaging to make new products such as book bags that are sold at major retailers.

So, you've picked all the low-hanging eco-fruit. You've changed out your light bulbs and done a variety of home energy saving retrofits. You've put in tap aerators and shortened your showers. You walk and ride your bike instead of drive as much as you can. You've even started using the clothesline in your laundry room to cut your dryer use by two-thirds...now what? Go eco-shopping to celebrate. Here are thre great products that you can use to "pitch in."