Get "Green" for Your School by Going "Green"

Have you heard the expression "one person's trash is another person's treasure"?  School counselor friends I have a project that can help you turn your school's trash into "treasure".  My school recently started collecting "trash" (candy wrappers, string cheese wrappers, empty chip bags, yogurt and apple sauce containers) for Terracycle.  Terracycle is a company that upcycles trash into items that can be reused again.  As you turn in items to be recycled, you receive points (money, 1 cent per piece) that can go towards any non profit or charity that you choose (it adds up very quickly).  My school is raising money to fund classrooms in Haiti, but I've heard of other schools that donate the money back to their school's PTA so the money comes directly back to school.

This project costs no money to start but does take some teamwork and planning.  We have a team to put this together and run it.  Click here to read how to get started with Terracycle.  They provide free shipping labels for your boxes of recyclable products and are very easy to contact if you have questions. 

We started collecting right before Halloween (hello tons of candy wrappers) and within 6 six weeks we had collected  21 boxes of items to be recycled!  It has gone very well because we also have students bringing in items from home to be recycled too.  We have a "JYJ Green Team" which consists of students & staff that collect and sort recyclables at our school.

(Top) Green team shirts (aren't they awesome), (bottom) collected items about to be shipped off.

I haven't mentioned this before but I have a passion for recycling and taking care of our environment.  Things that can't be recycled at school, I bring home and put in my recycle bin at home & I take my own bags to the store.   I even hope to one day drive a hybrid car (but since I haven't had a raise in 6 years, that's going to have to wait). This project really lets us as a school see how much we waste in our day to day activities and lives and how just saving something so small like a candy wrapper can make such a huge impact on our world (since we are helping fund classrooms in another country).

Does your school do Terracyle or have a recycling program? Pin It