Terracycle Brigades

Since Shuge expressed interest in this, I thought that maybe I'll just open it up to volunteers to see who will step up and take the lead on this.

Terracycle is a major company that takes used material and makes cool reusable "stuff" that people use. For example, the stacks of paper (made of banana peels, elephant poop, etc.) and the biodegradable corn-based pens I showed you guys in class are all made by Terracycle.

They also take old "trash" and make it into new usable objects like bags, bottles, notebooks, etc. But they get all the trash from brigades around the country. Most brigades exist at schools where the kids choose to help collect common types of trash, clean them up, and send them in to Terracycle by mail.

For example, two years ago I did this with my classes where we collected drink pouches from Lawson students and sent them to Terracycle. However, it's a lot of work because we had to cut the pouches open, wash them, and dry them. By the end, only two girls invested their time into collecting drink pouches. From then on I haven't done the brigade with any other classes because there have not been kids that care enough to take on this big challenge! (It's almost like being a trash collector --- cleaning up after other people). But of course, if you think about it from a different perspective and think about how you're helping the environment by not letting these objects end up in landfills, then the job won't sound so undesirable!

Here's the link to check out the various brigades we can participate in. If you really have the passion and would like to put in the time and effort to help a brigade get started at Lawson, let me know and I'll sign us up! By the way, Terracycle also donates a few cents to Lawson per item of trash we send in!