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April 10, 2008

The View

Green Co. pays for used juice pouches

Local organizations available to use recycling program

By William Zilke, Staff Writer

PUBLISHED: Things have changed since many of us went to school.

At lunch time, you had the choice of buying milk or waiting for a drink of water from the fountain.

But for many years, juice boxes and pouches have been a staple beverage for most students since the 1980s.

However, what happens to all of those juice pouches?

"There are 4.6 billion juice pouches produced every year," Michael Waas of TerraCycle, Inc. said. "Because the material used to makes these is non-recyclable, virtually every single one is sent to a landfill."

TerraCycle acquired those numbers through the Container Recycling Institute that follow these trends.

To help combat this growing

problem, TerraCycle, Inc. has partnered with Capri Sun and Honest Tea for a recycling program that is truly revolutionary.

Their solution is the "Drink Pouch Brigade."

"By participating in a Brigade, the Van Buren Public Schools can actively engage students in an up-cycling program that teaches the benefits of recycling while also earning some extra funds," Waas said.

This program allows schools, houses of worship and other organizations to reuse these items that previously were not recyclable.

The nationwide Drink Pouch Brigade sends collections bags that will hold 100 pouches and even includes prepaid shipping labels.

Not only does the Drink Pouch Brigade collect all used drink pouch containers, they pay participants two cents for every drink pouch they collect.

The pouches do not have to be Capri Sun drink pouches to be collected.

"I've thought about all of those juice pouches going into the landfills," Van Buren Public Schools Communications Director Paul Henning said.

Karen Sanders, the Food Service supervisor at Belleville High School said, "We only sell juice boxes and they're ala carte and what they get with their meal is a plastic cup."

While the Van Buren Public Schools do not have excess juice pouches, this nationwide program is free to sign up for and Belleville area organizations are eligible.

However, more than 800 schools and community groups did sign up and have collected an astounding 60,000 pouches in a matter of just a few months.

"This program was designed to allow our nation's schools, churches and other organizations to help save the environment while raising money for charity or extra funds for themselves," Waas said.

Most importantly it teaches kids about the importance and benefits of recycling."

"The best part about all of this is that people can sign up as soon as they read the article," Waas said.

Honest Tea, Capri Sun, and TerraCycle are challenging America's schools and churches to help rescue and reuse one million pouches in the next year.

The pouches will be made into school supplies such as

pencil cases, as well as handbags of various sizes and styles, which will be sold at Target stores this year, according to TerraCycle.

The Drink Pouch Brigade was derived from TerraCycle's hugely successful nationwide Bottle Brigade recycling program (www.terracycle.net/bb).

The Bottle Brigade fundraiser has grown to 4,000 locations in just over a year

and has rescued and reused over 2 million soda bottles.

Honest Tea, which manufactures organic thirst quenchers and teas, is a new entry into the drink pouch market, offering a USDA certified organic, low sugar, fruit flavored thirst quencher for kids. Honest Tea is highly concerned with reducing their impact on the environment by finding a way to reuse some of the waste generated by their Honest Kids Drink

Pouches.

If you are interested in helping to keep our planet green and make some money for your organization- or are interested in other TerraCycle programs or their organic gardening products- call Waas at 1-609-393-4252 ext. 428 or email him at michael@terracycle.net.

Contact Staff Writer William Zilke at 697-8255 or at wzilke@heritage.com.

http://www.bellevilleview.com/stories/041008/loc_20080410010.shtml