Local School Trades Trash for Cash

Bags of chips, candy wrappers, tubs of butter…there’s very little that won’t earn a buck at these days.

The school’s growing TerraCycle program allows these items and more to be recycled to earn funds that will be allocated by the school’s Parent-Teacher Association to finance classroom necessities. So far, the school has raised about $240.

“Once we get our collection bins set up and volunteers organized, we plan on holding a big recycling drive to get the Ohlone community excited,” said PTA treasurer Catherine de Leon. “At some point, we hope to get the rest of the Hercules community involved as well.”

The program works by registering with TerraCycle—an international recycling company spanning 14 countries—for specific brigades, which are recycling initiatives for certain items.

Students bring in packages for their emptied goods to place in food-related bins throughout the school, while Mondays are reserved for turning in a diversity of items that adhere to the requirements of certain brigades.

Once an allotted amount of materials for the respective brigades is gathered (which largely varies by item type), the refuse is shipped to TerraCycle which pays Ohlone a per unit fee for the items before using them to create a multitude of products that are sold in conventional retail stores.

Most of the materials can be redeemed for two cents a unit, while recycled printer cartridges top the scale of Ohlone’s brigades at a quarter a pop.

“The program is fairly new to Ohlone and is still a long way from realizing its potential,” de Leon said. “The immediate goal right now is to introduce the idea of waste reduction and upcycling to the students so that it becomes second nature. The bonus would be that they get to raise some money for their classrooms.”

The program is highly reliant on volunteers, who are required to sort and count the number of waste items before sending them to TerraCycle. Although some of the brigades have to be paid for, others are free. TerraCycle pays for the bulk of the shipping costs.

Other recyclable materials at Ohlone include coffee bags, glue, and diaper packaging.

“The idea behind TerraCycle is something I truly believe in,” de Leon said. “My daughter is in fifth grade and when I finish my last year as an Ohlone executive board member, I told [PTA president] Albert that I would love to continue as the coordinator of this program.”