With kindergarten teacher Karen Dunlap as their leader, the Norristown school collects drink pouches, chip bags and cookie wrappers — hard-to-recycle waste — and sends them away to be upcycled into eco-friendly products. Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials, and it’s what the Trenton, N.J.-based company TerraCycle does with candy wrappers, energy bar wrappers and other consumer products, while at the same time paying the schools and charitable organizations that collect the used packaging.

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.

Ziploc Brand products and TerraCycle want to celebrate moms around the country  who are taking steps to make a difference for the environment and their  communities. Tell us how the mom you are nominating engages in  activities designed to help protect the environment and they could be  the next "Make a Difference" Mom!

GREENVILLE — The 25 students in Rochelle Eggebrecht’s fourth-grade classroom at Greenville Elementary School are learning how to turn trash into treasure. And they’re asking their peers and the community to join in the effort. The students have organized Project Upcycle, a district- and community-wide project that collects plastic waste such as drink pouches and Ziploc bags and sends it to TerraCycle, a company based in New Jersey. TerraCycle uses the plastics to create useful, eco-friendly products like tote bags, purses, kites, fencing, coolers, school pencil cases and binders.

Any item that TerraCycle accepts for it’s upcycled products can now be dropped off at one of five East Coast Walmarts instead of being mailed directly to TerraCycle. According to GreenBiz, anyone can drop the items off at Walmart, not just the schools or non-profits that have signed up for TerraCycle’s Brigade.

The Sandy Valley High School Science Club is embarking on a recycling project called the "TerraCycle Recycling Brigade." The science club will collect used and empty Carpri-Sun pouches, Elmers Glue containers (both sticks and bottles), Plastic Baggies (like Ziploc), Cookie Wrappers (like Nabisco, Grandma's and Oreo's) and old cell phones. All items donated will be counted and turned into the TerraCycle company, who will in turn pay the school for every item sent in. This helps divert trash from the landfill and earns for a SV Science Club Scholarship and field-trips.

That’s where TerraCycle comes into play. The goal of TerraCycle is to prevent snack and drink containers from ending up in landfills or being incinerated. TerraCycle helps band consumers together into groups — called “Brigades” — to return used packaging in bulk to TerraCycle. Returned goods are then cleaned out and transformed into new products including bags, coolers, clip boards, picture frames and kites. In addition, for every package returned the brigade earns money to put towards a charity of their choice or, if the team is from a school or non-profit organization, they can keep the money to further their mission.  It is a win-win program: people can reduce their waste while raising money for a good cause. As word spreads about TerraCycle more and more snack and beverage companies are joining the program, meaning even more packaging can be returned and re-purposed. Some major companies whose wrappers can be sent back to TerraCycle include: Stonyfield, Capri Sun, Frito Lay, Kraft, Mars Wrigley, Kashi, Aveeno, Colgate, and Ziploc. The recycled products that TerraCycle produces are then sold at major retailers, including Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and K-Mart. The end products are labeled as TerraCycle products, so consumers know they are supporting a good cause and creating demand for the program. According to the TerraCycle website, there are 11,597,783 people collecting trash with TerraCycle brigades, and over one billion units of waste have already been collected and re-purposed into 186 different products. If that doesn’t already sound good enough, these efforts also helped raise $1.2 Million for various schools, non profits, and charities across the country.

Do you remember our last post about TerraCycle called Making Trash Green? You should definitely check it out if you didn't already read it. Basically, schools, churches and groups of all kinds form a brigade and start collecting! There are brigades for drink pouches, Bear Naked, Huggies, and Ziploc bags- to name a few. You simply collect and send- then TerraCycle makes a donation to your non-profit or a charity of your choice. TerraCycle then takes the trash and makes it into something not-so-trashy.

I've seen this TerraCycle logo on several products, but it wasn't until today that I took time to investigate what exactly it is! Basically TerraCycle (TC from here on out...) is a program that takes trash that wouldn't typically be recycled and turns in into a host of products--ranging from bookbags to fences, picture frames to fire-starter logs! What type of things can be TC'd?  Juice pouches, candy wrappers and bags, ziploc bags, chip bags, lotion bottles, yogurt containers...on and on!  In order to get in on the TC movement folks join a 'brigade' where they collect specific items from neighbors, family, friends, co-workers...and once you've reached the minimum number of items needed to ship TC emails labels you print and send off.  AND, for each item you send TC will donate cash to a charity or non-profit organization of your choice!  How cool is that??

This past week I purchased a package of Keebler's Sandies Pecan Shortbread cookies.  On the wrapper, I discovered that Keebler has now paired with TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  to encourage people to upcycle their cookie wrappers.  As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of upcycling everything I can as I figure the fewer items that end up in landfills the better off we all are. TerraCycle encourages consumers to save more than just cookie wrappers, though.  They have established trash brigades to allow consumers to earn cash for their trash for a school or other non profit group.  Through this program you can save items such as drink pouch containers, candy wrappers, home storage items (such as ziploc bags), yogurt containers, chip bag, and other items, then redeem them for $.02 each to raise money for programs such as schools.  They then turn these items into products like fencing, eco friendly fire starters, windowbox planters and other garden pots, and much more.  Visit their website for more information on this wonderful program.