CapriSun Drink Pouch Brigade - 2/11 update

Last month, I got another set of bags of drink pouches from my kids' school for our CapriSun Pouch brigade. I received 12 bags and worked on putting the pouches into the boxes so I can send them to Terracycle.

12 bags of CapriSun pouches

We used a copy paper box just like before to hold the pouches

Here is the 1st box filled with CapriSun pouches.

Filled 2 boxes on the left (white). I need some more pouches to fill the 3rd box (red).

Closer look on the 3rd box.

These 2 boxes are ready to be shipped.

Covered the boxes and attached the pre-paid UPS shipping labels.

I have dropped the two boxes to a nearby UPS store.

Just like what I said before, Terracycle pays for the shipping and they also pay the charity 2 cents per pouch.

Terracycle already received the 2 boxes above. I am currently working on finishing up the 3rd box (red). I'll post a couple more pictures once I'm done.

Plastic Bag Recycling Bins - Home Depot and Wawa

A couple more stores/businesses that provide bins for plastic bag recycling.

Home Depot stores can be found around the U.S. and they also have presence on other countries. According to their website, "The Home Depot has 1972  convenient locations throughout the United States (including the territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands), Canada, China and Mexico."

Home Depot Plastic Bag Recycling Bin

Wawa stores can be found in the Northeastern side of the U.S. (portions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia). It's a convenience store similar to 7-Eleven but they also have Gasoline Stations.

Wawa Plastic Bag Recycling Bin

Reusable Bags revisited - Disney, Home Depot and Sears

Here are a few more reusable bags that I found from different stores over the past months.

Disney Store - Cars (Lightning McQueen)

Disney Store - Toy Story

Disney Store - Mickey (Love your mother Earth)

Home Depot

Sears - small size

Sears - big size.
My son wanted to be in the picture (never knew he was there when I took it)

Joined a CapriSun Brigade

I wrote about recycling CapriSun pouches last June and when I found out about it, I tried looking for a brigade to join. Luckily, my children's school decided to start one and I volunteered in helping them out.

They have asked me if I could assist in packing the pouches and sending them to Terracycle. The school will receive $0.02 per pouch and plan to use the money to refurbish the school's playground (similar to their Paper Recycling activity).

As you can see below, the school was able to gather several bags of CapriSun pouches. There were 10 bags of pouches and I went through each bag flattening each pouch and putting them in the shipping box.

Here is how the pouches looks like on the shipping box.

I am using a box that store 10 reams of office paper to package the pouches.

I tried to squeeze as much as I could on the 1st layer and adding a 2nd layer of pouches.

Here is a filled box. I believe I was able to finish 5 bags just for this one box. I packaged it up, added a shipping label and dropped it at a UPS store but didn't weigh the box.

Shipping to Terracycle is free if you are a member of a brigade and you have an account on their site. You can just login to your account and print out a pre-paid UPS shipping label. Then, drop off the package to any UPS store and you can also track the package on the UPS website.

I was able to fill two more boxes with the remaining 5 bags. All of the boxes have been shipped and confirmed that they were received on by Terracycle. The boxes are a bit heavy... maybe around 8 to 10 pounds each. I should have weighed each one of them before shipping them out.

Lastly, I hope the school earns a lot from this recycling activity so they can make their school playground safer.

Paper Recycling - PaperRetriever.com

My kids school started a paper recycling drive during the start of the school year. They are trying to raise money to upgrade the school's playground. In order to do this, they obtained recycling bins from PaperRetriever.com to be able to collect the used paper products.

The recycling bin looks like this and has a picture of a dog carrying a paper. This is the back of the bin and shows a large sign that says "Make Every Page Count. Recycle Paper Here."

This is the front of the bin that shows "Local Fund Raising." To drop paper, you don't need to open the front covers since there are slots on the sides where you can drop the paper items/products.

There are 3 bins at the back of the school and the last time I walked by, I saw 1 bin is already full and the other 2 are about half-full.

The following items are accepted on the bins: Newspapers, Magazines, Office and School Papers, Shopping Catalogs and Mail.
This is the side of the bin where you can drop the paper items. It also lists the type of papers that are accepted (Phonebooks are not accepted). On the side of the paper list, it also list items that should not be included: Plastic, Glass, Metals and Trash.
The are also signs that can be seen around the school campus that directs where you can drop your used paper.
The school had a paper drive week last month and asked each student to bring used paper for recycling. The total weight of collected paper amounted to 6836 pounds. That is about 3 1/2 (short) tons of paper from about 600 students.

We contributed about 80 pounds of paper and old magazines for that week. The drive helped me clear out old bills, statements and magazines stacked in my home office. Most of my bills are now electronic ever since I switch paperless. Here is a previous post about paperless billing and it has the sign-up links for banks, utilities, etc.

One note though. I did shred those bills with confidential information before sending them to school (shredding helps in protecting your identity).

The school's paper drive is still ongoing. All of our junk mail and other paper products are now going to this drive. My regular recycling bin is a little lighter now since I don't put any paper there anymore.

Pathmark (recycling and reusable bags)

We dropped by a local Pathmark supermarket near our house and I found a plastic bag recycling bin in the store. Pathmark stores are in the Northeastern side of the United States and most of their stores are in the states of New York, New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Here is what the plastic bag recycling bin looks like. It's similar to what I found in Staples and Lowe's.
Pathmark also offers reusable bags for 99 cents each and they have several designs as shown below. I found their reusable bags sturdy as compared to other reusable bags. It also appeals to nature lovers since the designs have plants and animals on them.

Anatomy of a Starbucks Coffee Cup

Around 8:30am at the office.

Zzzzzz..... head dozing off early in the morning. The cup of coffee I took before leaving home is not kicking in my system.

Coffee... I need COFFEE!!!!

So, I head down the cafeteria and grabbed a cup of Starbucks coffee. After a few sips, WOO HOO!!! I'm feeling the caffeine flowing through my veins and now I'm refreshed and energized.

I then noticed something on the coffee sleeve. It said "Starbucks is committed to reducing our environmental impact through increased use of post-consumer recycled materials. Help us help the planet." Also written are the following:

60% post-consumer fiber sleeve
First-ever 10% post-consumer fiber cup

I then looked at the cup and I found the information about the recycled part. Also, the lid that they are using are recyclable. Below are the pictures that I took to show the details of the recycled/recyclable parts.

Starbucks coffee sleeve.

Fiber cup (10% post-consumer shown at the bottom)

A closer look of the cup
(apologies... blurred picture. I took this using my cell phone)

Lid of the cup

This is a good thing and I hope the other coffee cup makers and coffee shops will follow Starbucks lead on this.

I just found information regarding the Cup Recycling program at Starbucks by Global Green USA at sustainablog.org. There are lot of very interesting information written by Cindy Tickle. Please visit this link for the full article.

But if you really want to help the environment, a better choice is to use a reusable mug (similar to the pictures shown below) to drink your coffee, tea or other beverage of your choice. You will not produce any waste and you can reuse the mug everytime you want a refreshing drink... just don't forget to clean it after each use. :)

Reusable Mug

Reusable Mug available at the office