‘Upcycling’ gains fans in Manitoba

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This article was published 19/02/2010 (5995 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Carts, curbside composts, and city hall: Winnipeg’s been talking plenty of trash this month. Now, the din is about to get a little denser as a Toronto-based “upcycling” company looks to jump on Manitoba’s junk.

Called TerraCycle, the company is “grown outta garbage,” said a spokesman, and is ready to collect Manitoba’s recyclable trash to turn into shiny new consumer goods, including brightly coloured backpacks and garden planters.

“The key is to come up with new ways of reusing,” said Brian Young, the Toronto-based director of TerraCycle’s community program. “All you have to do is clean (trash) up and put it in a different presentation and all of a sudden you have a different product. But we cannot make new material until we’ve collected enough old products.”

To make that collection, TerraCycle teams up with what it calls “brigades” — community groups, schools and even individual families that sign up, sort their trash and ship certain kinds of refuse to a Toronto warehouse, free of charge.

In return, Terracycle gives two cents, either to charity or to the school, for each piece of garbage collected.

It’s not much, but it can add up quickly. Schools in the United States can make a few hundred dollars a year, Young said. And in just a couple of weeks, the Grade 3 class at tiny Souris School in the southwestern Manitoba town shipped more than 200 juice- pouch wrappers to TerraCycle.

“Getting these little people excited about recycling helps get the parents excited,” said Souris Grade 3 teacher Bev McGregor, who signed up her class of 19 in early February. Souris was the first Manitoba school to jump on board; others in Winnipeg, Gimli and Riverton have also signed up.

The Souris Grade 12 class is also signed up to “upcycle” trash. The older kids aren’t just taking care of their own garbage; the teens regularly sort through school garbage bags to sniff out recyclable and upcyclable material. “Yeah, the classroom does smell a bit,” laughed Grade 12 student Julia Ginter, 17. “But when we realized how much this was going to help the school, everyone stayed. Our goal is to show everyone that recycling doesn’t stop at the school. It needs to be done from now until forever.”

It’s all part of taking Souris down a greener path. Grade 12 teacher Jacqueline Bechtold has big plans for teaching sustainable living, including a hip music video demonstrating the amount of waste generated by the school.

TerraCycle fits right into that plan, she said. “It’s really innovative. When we teach students vocabulary now, we talk about ‘upcycling.’ My kids need to know this.”

It’s a win-win for TerraCycle. Schools’ trash becomes a retail treasure, while contracts with manufacturers such as Kraft secure the company’s bottom line.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca