My third grader sometimes goes through our trash in the kitchen and pulls out an occasional bottle. Then she yells out:

“Hey, mom, you didn’t recycle this!”

Uh oh. It wasn’t on purpose. I was washing dishes way past my bedtime and didn’t look twice when I threw that milk jug into the trash.

Usually, Mae tosses the recycled stuff into the right bin. (Thanks!) But sometimes she gets creative: after watching a Project Runway rerun about clothes designers who turned candy wrappers into clothing, Mae has been known to turn trash into clothes. (Don’t ask.)

Not only is my daughter a great excellent recycler, she’s a great role model.

So, it should not have surprised me recently when we came across an ad at a local store for TerraCycle, a company that collects juice boxes. Depending on the juice brand, this company will donate 1 or 2 cents per ouch to a charity of your choice. The company then turns the waste into pencil cases and tote bags.

Has anyone here been turning in juice boxes to TerraCycle?

I’m curious. Let me know.

Mae is psyched to start recycling juice boxes at her school.

“How many juice boxes do you think it would take one of those bags?” Mae said. “They’re cool–”

Since Mae goes to a “green” school, I hope they’ll jump on the idea. After all, there are so many teaching moments here:

Kids who make the signs at school will practice writing, punctuation, and getting the message across. There are new spelling words, too, such as: biodegradable, compost, landfill, environment, toxic waste.

Maybe kids can sort and group juice boxes by labels or types. Kids could “publish” the results for the whole school.

When we looked at the Terracycle site, Mae’s eyes got really big. She spotted a photo of designer Nina Valenti, who’s making on a ball gown from non-recyclable drink pouches. Commissioned by TerraCycle, the internationally-renowned pianist Soyeon Lee wore the dress at Carnegie Hall this year.

Now, let’s not get too carried away…

Image from Terracycle