The bane of local recycling: There's no place to take your leaning tower of yogurt containers or sacks of plastic drink pouches.
But a new statewide reuse program is encouraging schools and
community groups to collect those items for fundraising. After signing
up at www.terracycle.net/brigades,
organizations can earn 1 cent for every drink pouch or 2 cents for
Honest Kids drink pouches. Yogurt containers fetch 2 cents for
six-ounce cups, and 5 cents for 32-ounce versions. All yogurt
containers must be cleaned.
According to the Container Recycling Institute, 3.6 billion drink
pouches are produced each year—and are non-recyclable. More then 10
billion yogurt containers are consumed a year in America. While the No.
5 containers have the least amount of plastic (Stonyfield Farm uses No.
5), recycling centers don't have the equipment to recycle them.
The drink pouches will be made into handbags, tentatively scheduled
to be sold at major retailers in 2008. Stonyfield Farm will reuse the
yogurt containers.