The EcoChic

In honor of Trash to Treasure Thursday, this week I’m super excited to bring you the latest and greatest news from TERRACYCLE!  In April, TerraCycle debuted Garbage Moguls on the National Geograpic Channel – a series of television shows that documented the zany antics of the TerraCycle crew as they develop new products from our garbage.

This Saturday, National Geographic will be airing the pilot along with three brand new episodes!  Set your DVR’s – plan a night in with friends – but don’t forget to watch Garbage Moguls this Saturday night.  The fun begins at 7pm ET as they replay the original pilot episode, followed at 8pm’s Pet Project, 9pm’s Fishy Business, and at 10pm pull an All-Nighter with the TerraCycle crew. 

Below is a clip from the 9pm Fishy Business episode where they Tom and Alby visit a plant in Ohio that turns 500 chip bags into a brand new trash can and pitch the idea to the Home Depot team in Atlanta. 

Be sure to join the TerraCycle preview party LIVE on Twitter from 8-11pm to win some great prizes.  Follow @TerraCycle and #GarbageMoguls to be a part of the live fun.  You can also follow along on Facebook and answer some trashy trivia questions.  www.facebook.com/terracycle

It’s my best friends birthday celebration so I may have to sneak onto my iPhone a few times to catch the action live – but shhhhh – don’t let her know!

Giveaway alert! See bottom of post to enter to win a Go Green Trio from Litter Free Lunch. Giveaway ended. ECO-ngratulations mphin278.

If I was a series type of blogger I would start a new series on ‘How can I recycle…?’  But as you all know my regular columns don’t EVER happen regularly!  LOL! 

The question today is “How can I recycle sandwich bags and old plastic storage containers?”

Kids across America have 2 choices at school these days.  1) Eat the cafeteria food (which my son actually enjoys), or 2) pack their lunch.  For kids (or parents) who opt to pack their lunches they can create about 67lbs of garbage each school yearfrom their lunchboxes alone!  Think about all those pre-packaged lunch kits, baggies, juice pouches, napkins, and plastic cutlery that they trash every day!  While some of these items might be recycleable most schools (at least where we are in FL) don’t have established recycling programs in the cafeterias. 

How many fundraisers does your kids school have?  Some days it may feel like millions…and a lot of them are junk you don’t need!  In our house we are trying to be more eco-friendly and trying to eat healthy so we don’t need wrapping paper and cookie dough.  Unfortunately the schools depend on this money to help with the programs that they offer to our kids.  WHAT IF…instead of selling you more junk you don’t need they actually made money off the junk they throw away every day?

Enters TerraCycle…yes, another raving post about my friends at TerraCycle!  What have they come up with now?

Ziploc Home Storage Brigade!

This brigade (or fundraiser/collection event) is only open to schools.  For every baggie or storage container that your school sends to TerraCycle - TerraCycle will pay you $0.02(for every 0.1lb of containers).  Even better is that they will take any brand of baggie and any brand of storage container AND they don’t even have to be clean!  No worrying about who’s going to clean the leftover peanut butter out of the bottom of the baggies…just package them up and ship them to TerraCycle.  TerraCycle will even pay the postage! 

Recap – 67lbs of garbage each year from one kids lunchbox = $1.34.  I know that doesn’t sound like a lot but now multiply that by the number of kids who pack their lunch at your school.  Let’s say that 200 kids pack their lunches.  200 X 1.34 = $268!  That’s free money from your trash!  I wish someone would hand me a check for $268 on trash day!  Think larger…tell the kids to collect their containers and baggies from home….tell them they can bring them to school and RECYCLE them…and it’s a fundraiser!  We already keep box tops – why not keep trash!  TRASH = MONEY FOR YOUR SCHOOL!

Now…let’s see how effective my proposal is to the rest of the PTA Board when I present this to them at the next meeting.  Oh yeah – did I tell you?   Next school year I am CO-PRESIDENT of the PTA!  Watch out school…you are about to be GREEN!  With the help of TerraCycle they are about to find new avenues for fundraising where we don’t have to sell anything.

WANT MORE SOLUTIONS?  Did you know that companies are now selling reusable cloth baggies and napkins for kids lunches? 

I know my son probably has the greenest lunch box in the cafeteria but he rarely has any disposable items.  We now use the Go Green Trio from Litter Free Lunch.  The Go Green Trio includes a reusable snack bag, a reusable sandwich bag, and a cloth napkin.  They are all made with 100% cotton twill and are machine washable.  Each bag comes with a Velcro closure so your kids lunch will stay inside the bag.  We already love their napkins and I’m happy to see Litter Free Lunch now making coordinating bags.  They are easy to throw in my purse or diaper bag when we go out so Lil’ B always has an emergency snack attack! 

WIN A GO GREEN TRIO!  Yes you can win your very own Go Green Trio from Litter Free Lunch.  Visit their website and tell me what your favorite product and color is.  Leave your comment below to be entered.
EXTRA ENTRIES:
1.  Become Twitter Followers of @LitterFreeLunch, @TerraCycle, and myself @TheEcoChic (1 pt for following everyone – leave your comment below with @Username)
2.  Visit our Facebook Fan pages and LIKE us all…if you do indeed like us!  Litter Free Lunch, TerraCycle, and The Eco Chic (1 pt for Liking everyone – leave your comment below)
3.  Visit my newest blog – Eco Chic Partiesand sign up for my Newsletter.  Eco Chic Parties is home to great eco-friendly Twitter Parties on Thursday nights at 9pm ET.  (1 pt for subscribing – must confirm subscription.  Leave a comment)
4.  Tweet about this giveaway and post; be sure to include @TheEcoChic and a link back here!  (1 pt for tweeting per day)

Contest open to residents of the US over the age of 18.  Contest period closes at midnight ET on May 26th, 2010.  GOOD LUCK!

CONTEST CLOSED! ECO-ngratulations Mphin278!

Disclosure: I was provided a Go Green Trio from Litter Free Lunch to review for this post.  That’s all!

If you have been a reader of mine since the early days you may remember my love of TerraCycle.  If not, feel free to read some of my past posts about this great company.  And despite the foul associations that are sometimes given to Wal-Mart it is our closest store for those quick items that we all need.  Now if you mix TerraCycle and Wal-Mart together and what do you get?

Great NEW TerraCycle products that can ONLY be found at EVERY Wal-Mart in the United States ONLY in April in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day!  Can you hear me screaming here people?  This is fabulous! 

As soon as they decide to fix the water main break that happened yesterday at our local Wal-Mart (which is undergoing some MAJOR renovations to bring us a Super Center!!) I am making a trip up there and will be taking pictures of the display to share with you all!  Look for it where their Easter Display use to be! 

I think my kids might just be getting some new TerraCycle gifts for Earth Day this year!  Earth Day is kinda like Easter in this house…my kids get eco-gifts on Earth Day from The Eco Chic. 

Join TerraCycleon Facebook and keep up with all the exciting things they are working on.  They even have giveaways on their Facebook page just for their fans.

Here is a great video I found on YouTube about TerraCycle!

This past Saturday was the closing day for Big B’s Little League.  We don’t usually spend much time at the park and rarely visit the concession stand but this weekend was different.  Halfway through the game Big B looked at the dugout coach and said “Look at all these bottles in the trash, why aren’t they being recycled?”  Gotta love a 6 yr old who is more interested in recycling than the game. 

Spending a whole day at the ball park I was in shock with the over flowing garbage cans of plastic bottles!  By noon all the trash cans were full and most of the content was bottles.  They obviously don’t have a recycling program in place.  We’re lucky though, this year we at least have trash cans in the dugouts. 

Well since Little League is a volunteer organization I guess I’ve volunteered myself to a new pet project…setting up a recycling program for the league.  I can see so much potential.  I may even link the recycling program with a fundraiser.  Many teams bring drinks for the kids following the game and Capri Sun is a common choice.  Wouldn’t it be neat to take those juice packs and join a TerraCyclebrigade to earn money for the park?  Hmmmm…the juice is flowing! 

Stay tuned as I try to green out little league before next springs season begins.  Anyone have any tips?

If you’ve been a regular here at The Eco Chic you know that I’m very fond of a company in New Jersey that is the king of upcycling.  TerraCycle takes our garbage and turns it into products that we can all use.  From reusing plastic bottles to package their worm poop fertilizer to reusing wine barrells by turning them into rain barrels TerraCycle really knows how to get creative with trash. 

I was speaking with George over at TerraCycle this week and he sent me a link to their new show, Garbage Moguls, that aires on the National Geographic Channel the evening of Earth Day.  Check out this funny clip to see what it’s all about.  I have my DVR set to record it since I’ll be out of town. 

If you are anything like me you probably open a bottle of wine (well at least before I got pregnant) and throw the cork in the trash.  I have a friend who saves them for a charity and another who just collects them for fun.  Well TerraCycle has a new use for them; they make corkboards from them.  I’ve seen kits where they sell you the frame and you add your own corks but this is already put together and ready for you to buy (available through Office Max this fall) and use…no glue required.  I think this would make a great addition to a kitchen or office. 

Participating in the Cork Brigade couldn’t be any easier.  All you have to do is save your wine corks and send them to TerraCycle.  You don’t have to sign up or anything…just send them in.  However, if you work at a restaurant or place that would collect over 200 wine corks you can sign up to receive a postage paid mailer.  Can you imagine how many wine corks could be saved from the landfill just by taking the time to send them to TerraCycle.  And you all know how much I love the idea of upcycling (turning trash into something useful without processing)!!!

Go visit TerraCycle and learn more about the Cork Brigade and other upcycling programs and brigades that they offer.  They continue to add new products to the line; I can’t wait to see what else they add for the holidays!

And the winner is Belinda P!  Congratulations!  **An email will be sent to Belinda S. to claim her TerraCycle Drink Pouch tote bag within 7 days.   Belinda, if you do not receive an email from me please contact me with your mailing address at theecochic@gmail.com.

I wanted to thank all of you for your comments and subscriptions to TheEcoChic.  This was my best giveaway yet and I owe it to all of my readers.  Please keep reading and posting comments.  In addition, if you have not subscribed to receive TheEcoChic in your inbox please enter your email address in the FeedBurner box on the right. 

A special thank you to TerraCycle for their product samples that made this giveaway possible.  If you haven’t already please take a minute to visit TerraCycle and learn more about their amazing company.  They are a real inspiration for everyone!

My little 5 yr old (ok..he’s a big boy now) will be starting school this week.  The start date of school is suppose to be Tuesday BUT that might change with Tropical Storm/Hurricane Faye headed towards Florida.  His school supply list was pretty basic this year; nothing too extravagant.  Mostly just paper, pencils, pencil box, glue, etc.  On my trip to Wal-Mart I only spent $5 on the whole list of supplies.  How can you make your kids school supplies a little more green?

Look for recycled paper and recycled folders.  Look for pencils that are either refillable or made from rainforest free trees.  TerraCycle even offers some unique and quirky back to school supplies.  They have a cute pencil bag, lunch box, and backpack all made from juice pouches.  I actually saw the pencil bag at our local Walgreens last week (only about $3).  Looking on their website they also offer eco-binders and a drink pouch homework folder. 

TerraCycle Bags

With all the new green cleaning products available I have to say I was quite excited to get a sample of the TerraCycle cleaners.  I have been using the Natural All Purpose Cleaner and the Natural Window Cleaner for a few weeks now and I have to say…I’m impressed!  Now if you knew me you would know I don’t like to clean!!  I hate using all those nasty smelling chemicals because they cause my asthma to flare up. 

Natural Window Cleaner

 My absolute favorite cleaner was the Natural Window Cleaner.  I have a 5 yr old who LOVES leaving his little handprints all over the back sliding class door and the front glass storm door.  We are always cleaning these doors and now I have a natural cleaner instead of my normal window cleaner.  No ammonia odor and no streaking; what more can a girl ask for?  I can once again see out of my windows, at least for the next 20 minutes before he goes and touches them again. 

There are 2 more natural cleaners that I want to try; the Bathroom Cleaner and the Drain Maintainer.  I have long hair that always clogs up the bathroom sink; especially when mixed with toothpaste and shaving cream.  We also have an older home and we haven’t upgraded the bathrooms yet.  The shower is the hardest place in the house to get clean.  The mildew grows so quick that we have to clean it all the time.  The only thing I have found that works easily with no strong smell is hydrogen peroxide; and that still has an odor.  So I can’t wait to find these 2 cleaners and give them a try.  You can search for a store near you by visiting TerraCycle; their store locator tool is at the top right of their website.   

Remember those soda bottles that TerraCycle collects in their Brigades?  All their cleaning products are packaged in those used soda bottles.  I love upcycling and this is truely upcycling at it’s best.  And when you are done with the product you know that you can recycle them easily.