Schools

High School Program Collects Trash, Gets Cash

Recycling program finds new life for old products and empty containers

Hillsborough High School Industrial Technology teacher Tim Zavacki is exchanging the school’s trash for cash.

Zavacki’s partnered with Terracycle, the retailer focused on creating products from hard-to-recycle or non-recyclable items, to collect with chip packages, cereal boxes, empty glue bottles and sticks, juice containers and more, ensuring the items stay out of a landfill—and nets money for a school club to boot.

“People give me a stark look, ‘like really, you want that,’ when I ask,” Zavacki said. “What are you going to do with it? Then I got into the story of what I do with it.”

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The items range from old cell phones, laptops, computer equipment, to half-finished makeup containers to toothbrushes to food packages and dish soap. Each item can be exchanged for a different amount of points, which can then be converted to a dollar value.

He send the items to Terracycle’s outpost in Michigan, where the items are either used to create new items—like bags, notebooks and folders from chip and cookie wrappers—or are taken apart and turned into raw materials, he said.

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Though larger electronics, like laptops, broken mp3 players and computer keyboards net the school a larger amount of points, Zavacki’s found the payoff is in chip bags—he tends to get more of those than anything else, he said.

“The money that’s raised from the recycling gets put back into the Technology Club for projects around the school,” he said.

He collects many of the items from a collection box in the school’s office, though he hopes to expand the program and have more collection points in the school, he said. Many of the items are from teachers, though drop boxes in some science rooms are also used to collect the items.

In addition, collects toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes for the program, Zavacki said.

Among the biggest misconceptions is that products must be empty in order to be collected—but that’s not the case, Zavacki said. In addition, he’ll take items from around town, which can be dropped off at the high school attendance office.

Zavacki began the program in 2009, with the pure aim of helping the environment.

“It redefines the idea of garbage,” he said. “So much stuff is thrown away that can be reused, and people don’t understand that. They don’t understand that it’s not the same as recycling cans and bottles. It doesn’t necessarily go in the same spot.”

The most time-consuming part of the project is sorting the items, though he has several students who will help him with it once a week. The other problem is storing the wrappers, since Zavacki has no additional storage space except for his room at the school.

Zavacki estimates that he’s received about $800 from Terracycle since starting the program. The money goes toward scholarships awarded to seniors at the end of the school year.

 “I really enjoy doing it,” Zavacki said. “I like helping the environment. It’s also a bonus that you get paid for it and it goes back to the kids.” 


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