Recycling company TerraCycle (Trenton, NJ) and Fonterra Brands New Zealand (FBNZ) have partnered to create the Fonterra Pouch Brigade, which is a free recycling program for Anchor Uno pouches or any other yogurt pouches. New Zealanders are now able to collect yogurt pouches and send them directly to TerraCycle, at no cost, where they will be upcycled into children’s pencil cases, or recycled into new products such as chairs and park benches.

Fonterra Brands New Zealand (FBNZ) is launching New Zealand’s first recycling program for yogurt pouches.

Milk processor Fonterra Brands New Zealand (FBNZ) has partnered with TerraCycle in the launch of a recycling program for yoghurt pouches — a packaging product that would previously have gone to landfill.

In 2009 a parent volunteer at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Glen Burnie saw an advertisement for a company called TerraCycle. Its “Get cash for trash” headline caught her attention, and before you could say, ‘Sounds too good to be true,’ there was a bin in the school cafeteria for the students to deposit their empty juice pouches at lunch. Since then, the school has collected over 70,000 juice pouches and recycles an average of 1,000 pouches per week during the school year. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, TerraCycle began upcycling various products around 2007. An initiative that started with drink pouches, today the company offers more than 40 Brigades® that collect what was previously non-recyclable or difficult-to- recycle waste. A brigade is simply the term TerraCycle uses to designate its donations—so there is, for example, the Yogurt Container Brigade, the Cheese Packaging Brigade, and the Candy Wrapper Brigade. St. Paul’s initally joined the Drink Pouch Brigade. Most of the brigades are free for participants and include free shipping as well as a donation for each piece of waste recycled.

I am completely inspired by Tom Szaky’s approach to changing, and changing, and changing his business model to ultimately achieve his organization’s mission. Tom is the CEO of TerraCycle, a recycling company, who described in this New York Times boss blog how he kept adapting his business model until he got it right:

We can't stop working to turn the Earth's health around. We have to continue recycling, reducing and reusing. We have to find new ways every day to minimize our carbon footprint. There are opportunities everywhere. Take, for example, the Clif Bar you're currently munching. TerraCycle [1] is now offering 2 cents for every Clif Bar wrapper you collect (you have to sign up first), so that they can turn them into funky eco-cessories, reducing the amount of wrappers that end up in landfills each year. And they aren't stopping at Clif Bars; Nature Valley and PowerBar wrappers are accepted as well. If you don't eat energy bars but gobble up tubs of yogurt and gallons of juice, TerraCycle is collecting yogurt containers and drinkpouches. Sounds good, and easy, to me.

Just to give you some background, in my first article, I highlighted the following:  Ecophones (gives cash for a multitude of items,) TerraCycle, who pays for items that ordinarily go in the trash, and Staples, who now gives Staples money for print cartridges along with Laptop Lunches, and many others.  What I love about this prior article is the amount of comments from people providing additional green fundraising sources. So, be sure to check out this article for great ideas.

All items that TerraCycle accepts to upcycle into new products will now be collected at five Walmart stores on the East Coast, the first retail outlets to test the new collection system, according to Green Biz. All told, the new collection system will accept 28 types of trash that can’t be recycled and would otherwise go to landfills, which TerraCycle turns into new products such as tote bags, plant pots, backpacks, pencil cases and portable speakers.

October 6, 2010—Five Walmart stores on the East Coast will be the first to test a new collection system for 28 types of trash that TerraCycle turns into new products. Brigades previously had to mail in trash they collect. The collection system at the five Walmarts, which went into operation October 1, allows anyone to drop off any waste TerraCycle accepts in converted 20-foot trailers at Walmart stores in Secaucus, Vineland, Deptford East and Lanoka Harbor, all in New Jersey, and Tullytown, Pennsylvania