Changes to TerraCycle Collections at Grace

Our TerraCycle collections have been going very well.  We have earned over $275 for the church and recycled over 13,000 items that would have otherwise been trash.  Please continue to bring your cleaned items to church for TerraCycling with the following adjustments:

Any brand healthy
food snack pouch.

• No more coffee bags
• New Collections
• GoGo Squeeze Containers
• Wine Pouches
• Pairs of Shoes

Unfortunately, Starbuck stopped sponsoring the Coffee Bag Brigade so we are no longer able to recycle coffee bags.  Please dispose of those in the trash.

We are excited to be recycling pairs of shoes, wine pouches and Go-Go Squeeze containers.  Here are the details for each.

Go-Go Squeeze

We accept GoGo squeeZ or other healthy food snack pouches. Please try to rinse them out as much as practical before bringing them in to church.

Wine Pouches

We accept all individual wine pouches, including Clif Family Winery Climber wine pouches.  This includes those that come inside boxes of wine too.

Pairs of Shoes

Recycle pairs of shoes

• Paired Shoes Brigade accepted waste: pairs of women’s, men’s, and children’s shoes, which may include athletic sneakers, cleats, flats, high heels, dress shoes, boots, and fashion or casual sneakers.
• Please Note: You must send in PAIRS of shoes. TerraCycle is unable to accept single shoes. Also, we will not accept any shoe that has even a single hole that you can put a pen through.
• The Paired Shoes Brigade does NOT accept: ski boots, roller skates, roller blades, ice skates, completely broken or ruined footwear, single shoes, rubber flip flops, or slippers

If you have questions or would like to help out, please talk to Alicia or Jonathan Hunt. 

New Items to TerraCycle at Grace

To date, Grace Church has earned over $300 from recycling our waste through TerraCycle, and we're still going and growing.

We're excited to add 3 more TerraCycle Brigades to our collection:

Any GoGo squeeZ or other
healthy food snack
pouches are accepted. 
PLEASE rinse out before
leaving at church.

• GoGo squeeZ
• Revolution Foods
• Wine Pouch

For the GoGo SqueeZ collection, all healthy food snack pouches are accepted.  Please RINSE the packages out before bringing them to the church so we can avoid any unwanted friends.

The Revolution Foods collection is limited to just Revolution Foods branded snacks, but the others can be included in the GoGo squeeZ above.

For the Wine Pouch collection, the bags in box wine count as well as wine pouches.  In Medford, you can recycle the Tetra-Pak bottle like boxes of wine along with juice boxes in our Single-Stream Recycling.

We also continue to collect the following items:

• Drink Pouches
• Chip Bags
• Cookie Packaging
• Candy Wrappers
• Energy Bar Wrappers (including Cereal Bars)
• Inkjet Cartridges (though we give those to the Roberts Elementary)

 Unfortunately, TerraCycle has cancelled the Coffee Bag Brigade, so please no more coffee bags.

If you are interested in helping sort, collect other items or find out more, please contact Alicia or Jonathan Hunt.

Recycling those Candy Wrappers

Bring in your candy wrappers to recycle!

Happy Halloween!

Tis the season of handy out and eating candy.  Be sure to save your candy wrappers (and your kids') and bring them to church so we can recycle them through TerraCycle.  So far this year we have raised over $150 from TerraCycle and kept pounds of material out of the landfills.

Other things that we can TerraCycle include:

• Cookie Wrappers
• Drink Pouches
• Candy Wrappers
• Energy Bar Wrappers (including Cereal Bar Wrappers)
• Chip Bags

Unfortunately NO MORE COFFEE BAGS for TerraCycle.  StarBucks stopped sponsoring the program and they have discontinued their recycling program for coffee bags.

Be sure to remove all crumbs from the wrappers before bringing them in and putting them in the kitchen corner by the oven.

If you'd be interested in helping to sort and pack up the wrappers for recycling, please talk to Alicia or Jonathan Hunt.

Happy Halloween!
Jon

More stuff for TerraCycle - Cereal Bar (aka Energy Bar) Wrappers

Box of candy wrappers to send into TerraCycle

Thank you to everyone for collecting and bringing in all the would be trash for TerraCycle:

• Coffee bags
• Juice Pouches
• Chip Bags
• Cookie Wrappers
• Inkjet Cartridges (though we've decided to give those to the Robert's Elementary School PTO instead)
• Candy Wrappers.

Through our efforts we have raised over $100 for Grace Church and recycled thousands of items that would have otherwise wound up in a landfill.

Great Job Grace Church!

During the last big sorting I noticed that a lot of people were collecting cereal bar wrappers which at the time we were unable to TerraCycle.  I checked with TerraCycle and they said they consider them energy bars and so I signed us up for that campaign as well.  So, in addition to all the great stuff above, you can now bring in cereal bar and energy bar wrappers.

If anyone is interested in helping with the management of Grace's TerraCycle program and sorting the items, please let me know as I'd love the help.

Peace!
Jonathan Hunt

More TerraCycling - Ceral Bar Wrappers

Boxes of stuff packed up
to send to TerraCycle

Three more boxes of stuff (Chip Bags, Juice Pouches and Coffee Bags) has been shipped to TerraCycle for recycling.  So far Grace Church has collected and recycled over 31 lbs of trash.

Washing it all

Going forward, please separate your Juice Pouches from other TerraCycle items as the juice pouches can make other things sticky.

Given how many cereal bars were turned in with candy wrappers, I have signed us up to collect "Energy Bar" wrappers. "Any foil lined energy and granola bar wrapper" can be collected.

Box of Candy Wrappers

Box of Chip Bags

Now Collecting Ink Jet Printer Cartridges for TerraCycle

In addition to the candy wrappers, coffee bags, juice pouches, etc., Grace Church is now also collecting ink jet printer cartridges for recycling through TerraCycle.  We'll earn a quarter ($0.25) for each cartridge we recycle, so bring in those used up ink jet cartridges and help Grace Church recycle.

We'll have a small box next to the other TerraCycle stuff in the kitchen behind the recycling so as not to mix the sometimes sticky juice pouches or chip bags with the ink jet printer cartridges.

More Recycling through TerraCycle

So far we have recycled over 1,700 drink pouches and now you can recycle even more "trash" to earn money for Grace Church. We are now collecting:

• Cookie Wrappers
• Coffee Bags
• Chip Bags
• Candy Bar Wrappers
• and of course the Juice Pouches

Please start saving your wrappers and bags to bring to church.  You can leave them by the recycling in the kitchen.  You can combine all the wrappers/bags/pouches into plastic grocery bags and I'll sort them.  TerraCycle will take the wrappers and turn them into heavy duty trash cans that should be available at some point through Home Depot.

If you are doing Coffee Hour please save the empty coffee bags.

Details from TerraCycle:
We accept any empty brand or size chip bag.

We are collecting all brands and sizes of cookie wrappers such as Nabisco® and Keebler®. Unfortunately we do not accept the inner trays of cookie wrappers, so please remove them before sending your shipment.

We accept any brand and any size coffee bag.

We will accept any brand and size candy wrappers. Please keep in mind that we donate *$0.02 for all candy wrappers. We do not accept candy boxes or gum packaging. Please note: If you have gum packages, please join the Gum Package Brigade to send in your gum packaging.

We accept any kind of brand of drink pouches. We do not accept juice boxes (but they can be recycled in Medford's co-mingled residential recycling).

If you have any questions, please ask me, Jonathan Hunt.

Our 2nd box of Juice Pouches enroute to NJ

We mailed our second box of juice pouches to be upcycled by TerraCycle today. This box was a bit bigger than the last one weighing in at 10.5 pounds. We'll see how many pouches that works out to when TerraCycle weighs them. As the school year is winding down, I expect that the supply of juice pouches will also dwindle over the summer. You can still bring them to the kitchen for recycling and we'll collect them, but it will probably be the fall before we send the 3rd box of juice pouches to TerraCycle.

A special thank you to the 3 kids that have done so much to collect juice pouches so far. At next Wednesday's Celebration, we will recognize these three over achievers with a small token of appreciation.

We are also collecting foil coffee packages like Starbucks and the ones we use on Sunday for Coffee Hour.  More soon on that.

Find TerraCycle Products at Walmart During April

TerraCycle Kids Grow Kits

As a special promotion in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this month, Walmart will be featuring over 60 TerraCycle product including some new ones in their stores across the country.  The promotion will only last through April 29th, so go check out the products at Walmart.

TerraCycle Kite made from Skittles Wrappers

If you decide to buy some, please save the receipts as there will be a chance to submit those to TerraCycle to get some additional donations to Grace Church's Juice Pouch Brigade which has already raised $13.10 with more to come.

First Batch of Juice Pouches Heading to New Jersey

The first box of 547 juice pouches collected by the kids of Grace Church has been boxed up and mailed to TerraCycle in New Jersey where they will be made into cool things like backpacks, folders and pencil cases.

So far, we have collected 547 juice pouches which weigh in at over 6 lbs, raising $11 for Grace Church in a month and a half.  That is 6 pounds of stuff not going into our local landfills.

Great Job Kids! Keep up the good work. 

If you need help or ideas on how to collect more juice pouches from your classmates at school, ask Hannah, Ellie or Christor at Godly play or coffee hour.

Video Tour of the TerraCycle Factory

Christor asked Alicia:

How do they turn the juice pouches into money?

She explained that they recycled the pouches into products that they sold at stores and that is how they get the money gets donated for each juice pouch.  I happened to come across this new video tour of the TerraCycle factory today and can't wait to show it to Christor and all the others who have been helping collect juice pouches for Grace Church.

Our first box of juice pouches is going to be shipped to TerraCycle later this week. The kids have been doing a great job!

Juice Pouch Recycling Update - 225 and Counting

Thanks to the exceptional efforts of Hannah, Ellie and Christor, who have collected over 225 juice pouches in the first two weeks.  I hope they'll share their secrets to collecting so many juice pouches because I know they are not drinking that many themselves.  So far we have diverted over 2.5 pounds from the landfills and we are just getting started.  At the end of the month, I'll package up the pouches we have collected and mail them to TerraCycle.

If you have or know of kids (or anyone for that matter) that drinks Capri Sun, Kool-Aid or Honest Kids juice pouches, please collect them.  Try to drain as much of the liquid out and bring them to Grace Church.  There is a small box behind the recycling in the kitchen.  Please put the pouches in the zip top bag.

Thanks,
Jon

Grace Joins TerraCycle to Recycle Juice Pouches

Last Sunday, Grace Church began collecting Capri Sun, Honest Kids and Kool-Aid juice pouches to upcycle through TerraCycle.  What is upcycling you ask?  Typically when we recycle something the resulting products are of a lower grade and value, also referred to as downcycling.  For example, each time paper is recycled, the fibers that make up the paper become shorter.  That is why you usually see writing paper with a percentage of recycled content and not 100% recycled content.  Eventually the fibers become so short they won't stay together as paper so the only thing left is for them to be composted.  Upcycling on the other hand is actually making a product with higher value than the recycled material such as juice pouches.  TerraCycle takes the juice pouches we collect and turns them into products like back packs and reusable shopping bags which they sell at stores like Home Depot and Walmart.

In addition to doing our part for the environment by recycling, we also receive 2¢ per pouch for the church.

We have a box behind the recycling bins in the kitchen that you can put your empty juice pouches, either Capri Sun, Honest Kids or Kool-Aid.  Once we have enough to make it worth while, we will send them to TerraCycle to be upcycled.

So, have your kids bring back home their juice pouches from school lunches and snacks.  If you're willing, have them ask their friends to give them their juice pouches as well and we'll recycle and raise even more.  Then drop them off in the box when you come to church.

TerraCycle upcycles a number of other things that we could collect, so please let us know which of these we should sign up for and start collecting:

• Stonyfield Yogurt Containers
• Potato Chip Wrappers
• Candy Wrappers
• and many more (there are 5 pages of them)

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact:
   Jonathan Hunt at jmhunt@mit.edu or (781) 874-0493.

Let us all be stewards of this earth our island home.

Thanks,
Jon

Details from TerraCycle's FAQ:

Do I need to clean the pouches before putting them in the bag?
We ask that you remove the straws and ensure that the liquid is removed from the pouches as much as possible. If you can, it does help if you cut the pouch at the top above where the straw is inserted, however this step is NOT required. This cleaning process will also help eliminate unwanted pests.

How much do you pay per drink pouch?
We credit your charity $.02 per Honest Kids, Capri Sun and/or Kool-Aid drink pouch.