By Kim Hilsenbeck.
Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. For fourth-grade Fuentes Elementary teacher Shannon Waits, the idea of collecting recyclable items, such as drink pouches, turned a simple task into a great way to raise money.
How does it work?
“It’s really pretty simple,” Waits said. “I went to a recycling workshop in Austin. They talked about how they raise money for their school using Terra Cycle.”
Terra Cycle, founded in 2001 by a Princeton drop-out turned entrepreneur, is a private U.S. small business headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey. The firm upcycles and recycles difficult-to-recycle packaging and products, and repurposes the material into affordable, innovative products.
Some of the items made by Terra Cycle include bags and totes, umbrellas and lunch boxes.
Fuentes participates in three types of recycling groups, or what Terra Cycle calls brigades. The firm offers 48 different brigades, each sponsored by one or more companies.
At top, Fuentes Elementary students put their empty CapriSun juice pouches in a special bin in the cafeteria. Fourth grade teacher Shannon Waits then ships them to Terra Cycle, a company that upcycles items and turns them into new ones such as bags and umbrellas. Fuentes earns money recycling pouches, along with glue sticks and tape dispensers. (Photo by Kim Hilsenbeck) Juice pouches start like the ones at top end up like the ones here when Terra Cycle upcycles them. Fuentes Elementary School earns money for camp field trips by sending in used pouches to Terra Cycle, which pays about two cents per pouch. Teacher Shannon Waits said those pennies add up.
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“We recycle Elmer’s glue bottles and glue sticks, Scotch tape, as well as Capri Sun juice pouches,” Waits said.
Waits and her fellow fourth-grade teachers manage the Terra Cycle program for the school. This is the third year for Fuentes.
For example, the Capri Sun juice pouches, which are available for sale in the school’s cafeteria, are collected in large trash bins.
“We send notes to parents asking them to bring in used pouches,” she said.
Waits said teachers and staff across the campus, and parents all help with recycling, too.
“When the bin is full, I print a shipping label and pack up the bag and send it to Terra Cycle.”
The benefit to the fourth grade is raising money for the grade’s annual field trip.
“We go to a three-day, two night camping trip at Camp Champions in Marble Falls every spring. Fourth grade uses Terra Cycle to raise money for kids who might not otherwise be able to afford the camp,” Waits said.
“It’s expensive,” she continued, “and we refuse to leave any kid here because they can’t pay for it.”
Camp Champions costs $145 per student.
“We’re doing it to cover the cost of charter buses to get kids to and from camp,” Waits said.
Fourth-grade teachers also take part in McTeacher nights twice a school year to raise money; this is where teachers work a shift at McDonald’s and a portion of the night’s sales are donated to the school.
Over the course of the three years, Waits said Fuentes fourth grade managed to earn about $1,200 from its recycling efforts. Terra Cycle pays about two pennies per pouch.
“It’s two pennies, but it adds up,” she said.
According to Waits, it doesn’t cost the school much to participate; there is some time involved and the cost of garbage bags.
“We save boxes for shipping,” she said, “and Terra Cycle pays for the shipping.”
Where the items are shipped is based on the brigade. For example, the CapriSun pouches go to Michigan.
Waits said she got a note recently from someone in Michigan saying her children’s school isn’t doing the drink pouch brigade anymore. She wrote, “Would you mind if I just send them to you?”
The woman found Fuentes by doing a Google search.
“She sent a Ziploc bag full of pouches along with photos of her children,” Waits said.
She added that the fourth graders are going to send that family thank you letters.
“It’s a big deal to our kids who see these people from Michigan sending us these items. It shows our kids – your things that you do can have a global impact, and on people you don’t even know.”
