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 yearand 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.
