4th Quarter 2008

Your Community is Important to Your Tonnage!

The West Ridge (Chicago Area) Chamber of Commerce was interested in supporting area schools generate more funds through their Paper Retriever program. Amie Zander, Director of the Chamber, and Paper Retriever® Recycling Representative Rita Mazza visited various businesses to show them school bin locations and remind the business people to use them.

Later Ms. Zander approached Devon Bank and the bank is now hosting a bin on their property. The funds collected there will support educational programs in area schools.

The Chamber kicked off the bank's recycling program with an event where volunteers helped load paper from vehicles into the bin. (Pictured here is a truck full of boxes of paper!) A paper shredder was also available. They collected 1.16 tons in just one day! In November a local YMCA will join in and host a bin to add the bank's educational programs fund.

Finally, the Chamber has attached paper recycling flyers to boxes (donated by a local grocery store) and community members are picking them up to become "Box Families." Each of these families will donate a box of paper weekly to one of the bins. Remember:

  1. Whether you are a school, nonprofit or place of worship, contact businesses and remind them of your Paper Retriever bin. Ask businesses if they would like to host a bin for you.
  2. Plan a "curbside" event with volunteers unloading paper from vehicles. Try it once a month or once a week.
  3. Remember- shredded paper should be put in plastic bags (with a few small holes poked in them) before they go into the bin. This will help keep the area around the bin clean.
  4. Use your website, bulletin, newsletter, marquee and local bulletin boards to remind your community of your bin.
     
Bin to the Library

Paper Retriever to Fund Library Books

When the Ponder, Texas town secretary first suggested the Paper Retriever paper recycling program, city librarian Tanya Ochoa said she wasn't sure how much the library budget would benefit. But after doing a little math, she realized recycling could nearly double the budget for buying new books.

A good start always helps! Ochoa and others at Town Hall knew the bins were coming and took advantage of that to do some housekeeping. Several on the town staff helped clean out the public works office, throwing out many old construction documents. As a result, one recycle bin was almost instantly full. The staff has also arranged for the remaining obsolete Denton Central Appraisal District drawings to be "donated" to the Ponder Library Paper Retriever bins. Read about it here.
Have you visited the NEW Paper Retriever website? Go to www.PaperRetriever.com and take a look!

Bin to School


Johnston Elementary Fishy Story

Johnston Elementary in Highland, Indiana won a big cash prize recently in a Paper Retriever contest. With their winnings, they will buy and donate a fish tank to the school's library for everyone to enjoy. To read how they accomplished their feat, go to the school's website.



Santa Fe Trail Wins Big!

Santa Fe Trail Elementary School (Shawnee Mission, Kansas) won $1,000 from Paper Retriever just for recycling 20% more paper than last year! Look at these smiling helpers and sponsor! You can read about your new Paper Retriever loyalty program (ecocentives) on the next page.

  


Stevenson Elementary Throws a Great Kick-Off!

To kick off their Paper Retriever program, Stevenson Elementary in Heath, Ohio held a school wide recycling pep rally! Heath High School's marching band (with Pepper shown here) and cheerleaders helped to liven up the crowd with music and cheers set to a recycling theme. Go here for the rest of the event details.

St. Louis Urges Bin Donations

As the numbers of paper recyclers grow in the St. Louis County, local schools remind their communities to fill the Paper Retriever Bins. School officials discuss the "free money" the program brings them in this article. Click here to read more.

 

     
 
Bin to College

Oklahoma State University

The goal of the OSU's Real Cowboys Recycle Committee is to make everyone on campus more environmentally friendly and to encourage students and staff to recycle. They have placed Paper Retriever bins in different campus locations to make paper recycling even easier.

To bring the new green and yellow bins to the attention of the student body, a register-to-win-gift-cards contest was held. To see the whole story from the campus newspaper - click here.
 

Ask EVERYONE for their used holiday catalogs!  They weigh a lot and EVERYONE has them!
 

Bin to Church

From the Tuttle Times

It's always a good idea to let your community know what their donated paper is funding. True Oak Fellowship in Tuttle, Oklahoma did just that. This article made a big splash in the Tuttle Times.

Along with the colorful picture shown here, the uses for the funds were outlined: "All of the money earned from the paper recycling will go directly to benefit the children's church program, funding crafts, curriculum and the all-important candy, toys games and other prizes for the Tree House store."

The entire article is excellent! Click here to read it in its entirety.

Church gets Publicity from Realtor's Site

St. Micheal's Church in Cinncinnati has their bin proudly pictured on church member Gary Rossignol's website, CincinnatiInPhotos.com. Gary included the recycling process and other interesting information in the article. Go see for yourself!

Does your group have members who could put your recycling information on their sites?

For even more ideas - you can now access past Paper Retriever Newsletters. Go to www.PaperRetriever.com and look in the "About Us" section.

 


Church's New Recycling Program is "In the Bag!"

(left: Associate Pastor Brandee Webb)

Sherry Lakey, a member of the Church of Corinth in North Texas received an inspiration to get the church involved with the Paper Retriever program when she was recycling her family's old paper.

"I had been taking my magazines to a local Paper Retriever bin ," Lakey said. "When the church started talking about wanting to recycle I took the information right off the bin and called AbitibiBowater Recycling. They got us started immediately."

"First we got a whole bunch of paper sacks," she said. "We kicked our program off by handing out the bags from the pulpit. We encouraged the congregation to collect their mail and paper and bring it back every week." To see what else this church has done click here.

Look at how this Chicago Area Parish uses its Marquee!

Bin Scouting

Boy Scouts Still Do Good Deeds

Medina, New York (Buffalo area) Boy Scout Troop 28 enjoy the funding benefits from two separate bins. One is on the property of the troop committe chairwoman Darlene Witte and another at the church that sponsors the troop. Witte has even e-mailed businesses requesting "anyone with old paper to contact Troop 28." The boys pick up and transport the paper to one of their bins.

To read all about the innovative ways these boys fill their Paper Retriever their bins, click here.


We have a new and exciting program to tell you about: the Ecocentive Loyalty Program.
The program is designed to help each of you get more out of your Paper Retriever recycling program. You can start earning additional funds by registering today. The program is very simple, for every ton you collect you will get 1 point. These are the two options for redeeming your points:
1. You can redeem them for cash and get $1 for each point accumulated.
2. You can redeem them for merchandise from the Paper Retriever web store and "spend" $1.50 for each point.

Remember, you can't earn points if you don't register! Visit www.Ecocentive.com to register today.


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