Hayley Addesa
Features Writer
TerraCycling has taken over Millersville, but it’s a good thing. Dr. Nadine Garner and the Civic & Community Engagement & Research Project, or CCERP, are working towards truly making MU the green university it strives to be. TerraCycle is a project that started off by creating fertilizer from worm waste and packaging it in reusable containers, and boomed into creating new products from almost anything. Terracycling uses our trash for good; this organization will send out lists of different things we would usually throw away without a thought and upcycles them. Upcycling is the process in which our waste products are created into new things such as bags, office products, items for the home, and so much more. Who would have thought so much could be created from trash? Apparently one Princeton student, Tom Szaky, decided it was a good idea, because here we are today with an organization that took a long time to become the success it is now.
TerraCycle provides the option to “get paid for trash,” so anything that is collected amounts to two cents, which, in the long run begins to add up; Millersville will be utilizing this and using the money to support The Smile Train. For those who do not know, The Smile Train is an organization that pays for children with cleft pallets and cleft lips to have corrective surgeries. All of the money raised by terracycling will go towards the surgeries for these children; one surgery is two hundred and fifty dollars, so if it is worked at and kept up with, everything can add up to help many.
Are you wondering how you can get involved? Well luckily for the students at Millersville, the residence halls will be arming together to provide the opportunity to terracycle. Somewhere in the buildings there will be boxes with lists on the front of them. These are the brigades, and a brigade is the name for the types of items that are being collected at the time. There are brigades for oral health care, personal care and beauty, cereal bags, energy bar wrappers, and the list goes on. With so many options there is no excuse not to get involved. All the program asks of you is to pay attention to where you throw your trash. The boxes will be labeled as per what they are collecting. If it is labeled personal care and beauty drop in your empty shampoo bottle. Oral care, that old tooth brush belongs there. It is so easy to do, and can make such a difference.
If you are interested in learning more information about TerraCycle, visit their website at www.terracycle.com. There you can find information about the different brigades, the products they are making, and the impact that terracycling is having. CCERP and Dr. Garner will be holding a conference called Stewards of Sustainability in the Bolger Conference center on September 27 and 28. Registration for this event can be found on the Millersville University website on the CCERP section under Stewards of Sustainability.
