Start a School Recycling Program for Drink Pouches

Posted by Genna Cockerham Aug 10, 2009

This week I’ve been working on a series of articles about a company that uses juice drink pouches to make new products. TerraCycle, Inc. is a leader in upcycling and has several programs for turning trash into treasure.

Recycle Drink Pouches

Instead of throwing about juice drink pouches, parents, schools and organizations can collect drink pouches and send them to TerraCycle for use in new products. To learn more about the program, read Recycle Drink Pouches from Kids’ Lunches.

Starting a School Recycling Program

As the coordinator for a Drink Pouch Brigade pilot program, I’ve been thinking a lot about the logistics, the planning and the pitfalls of running a successful Drink Pouch Brigade. All this thinking has resulted in additional articles. How to Run a Drink Pouch Brigade explains the nitty-gritty details of what is going to make our program work. TerraCycle has found that a higher price for recycled products can make consumers less inclined to buy upcycled products. Similarly, I expect that the more stink, trouble and mess the used drink pouches create the less supportive parents, teachers and administrators will be of the school recycling program. An organized system is key.

Teach Kids to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

To me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to rely on posters to get the word out about a new school recycling program. There are many other ways to involve the children in the school in advertising the Drink Pouch Brigade. How to Publicize a School Recycling Program discusses alternatives that reduce paper waste while using the existing means of communicating between parents and schools.