Guest Blogger: Paul Wilson

ONSC has been fortunate to have a local ally, Paul Wilson of Intrust Bank, establish a Terracycle brigade that allows ONSC to earn cash through trash.  Learn more about Terracycle and ONSC in the Get Involved section of www.onsc.us and join the ONSC Corps and our brigade to support ONSC through Terracycle.  Here's some background on this intriguing program written by Paul:

So, what exactly is Terracyle and how can it be beneficial to our community? Terracycle is a company that takes name brand specific products that would otherwise go in your ordinary waste and recycles them into new products that are sold through retail channels. Terracycle pays a nonprofit or school of your choice for each piece of trash mailed in. Different criteria, such as type of packaging and how much you must ship apply to each product. 

The list of items Terracycle accepts is vast including: Trident, Bubblelicious, Dentyne and Stride bubble gum wrappers; cell phones; inkjet cartridges; Ziploc bags; all Mars brand candy wrappers; Capri Sun pouches; Frito-Lay Brand chip bags; Scotch tape dispensers and cores; Elmer’s glue containers; Stoneyfield yogurt containers; any Kraft brand cheese packaging; Mission tortilla & tostada bags; Colgate toothpaste packaging; Cliff Bar wrappers; Pentel highlighters and pens; Malt-O-Meal cereal bags; all laptops, digital cameras & mp3 players; among many other products. To view a list of items collected by the ONSC Terracycle brigade click here.

Do you see a product you recognize and use regularly? More than likely you do. You also probably throw these items away, because they are not easily recyclable. Consider the opportunity to not only keep these items from the landfill since they are turned in to other usable products but also to give back to your community.  At $0.02 per item, the money returned to your chosen nonprofit can really add up fast.  Think about what could happen when a large group of people unite and mobilize for the benefit of one nonprofit.
 
One such group that has mobilized an effort is the Northwest Arkansas Emerging Leaders (NWAEL).  During 2010, NWAEL collected more than 2,500 Frito-Lay chip bags, 200 Stride and Trident gum wrappers and 71 cell phones while earning over $70 for the benefit of the Ozark Natural Science Center.  Other materials have also been collected with ship dates scheduled for early 2011.  The organization collaborated with several businesses (thank you to Gusano’s Pizza in Bella Vista and Fix-It Wireless in Bentonville), events, and individuals to collect these materials.  Now the ONSC Corps has joined to help collect items and earn money for ONSC.   

So what can you do? I would advocate that you find a nonprofit who is managing the process and support them by providing the material.  Obtaining enough volume to mail in a particular material may prove to be challenging otherwise, changes are frequently made to the program and the website can be a bit of a challenge to navigate.

Best wishes collecting “trash” and most importantly, have fun while asking for it.

* To help collect “trash” for ONSC contact corps@onsc.us for more information.  There are several drop off sites around town to bring your trash or contact us and we will pick it up for you!  Learn about items to collect here.