Sayville’s Sunrise Drive Now Accepting Juice Pouches for Recycling

Sunrise Drive Elementary, of the Sayville Union Free School District, recently became the only TerraCycle-approved drop-off area to recycle Honest Juice pouches on Long Island. The school’s latest sustainability initiative, spearheaded by STEAM teacher Jenn Horton and librarian Kelsey LaPort, aims to help the Sayville community recycle traditionally hard-to-recycle products.

Throughout the school year, Ms. Horton and Ms. LaPort have worked with Sunrise Drive students to foster a greater sense of sustainability within their school. Students recorded podcasts that discussed sustainability topics, created posters and letters advocating greener behaviors, and built scrap-paper bins for classroom reuse. They began noticing that many of their favorite snacks' packaging—including Takis bags, Little Bites wrappers, and Go-Go Squeeze tubes—were difficult to recycle. This inspired Sunrise Drive to partner with TerraCycle, an organization committed to addressing the global waste crisis through recycling solutions. The school began collecting snack packaging for TerraCycle, ultimately gathering more than five pounds of Little Bites wrappers.

Looking to expand their recycling initiative to include Honest Juice pouches, Sunrise Drive discovered the nearest authorized drop-off locations were previously in Brooklyn and New Jersey. Following a thorough review process, Sunrise Drive successfully became Long Island’s sole drop-off area for Honest Juice pouch recycling. The drop-off bin is located outside the school building and is available to anyone during school hours.

“Our TerraCycle program empowers students to take an active role in sustainability by recycling products that usually can't go in standard bins,” said Ms. LaPort, one of only 14 certified sustainable librarians in the United States, and just the second elementary school librarian to receive this distinction. “We hope students see how their small actions can have a significant impact, especially when we come together as a school, a District, and as the larger Sayville community.”

For more information on the Sayville Union Free School District, visit the district’s website at sayvilleschools.org. Happenings in the district can also be found on the district’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/saydistrictpr. #CaringAndLearning