Markers & Pens recycling🖊️  Notebooks repurpusing📓 

The East Brunswick Sustainability Task Force, a subcommittee of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission, has begun implementing a program for the recycling of all kinds of markers, pens, and mechanical pencils at schools, houses of worship, and other community spaces throughout East Brunswick. 

With the generous financial support of Brunswick Memorial Home, the Sustainability Task Force was able to purchase two  "Zero Waste" boxes from Terracycle, a New-Jersey based company whose mission is to “eliminate the idea of waste” in an effort towards the creation of a circular economy.  

Once filled via the community-wide collection bins, the boxes will be shipped to Terracycle for proper recycling. 

To kickstart the project, we have collaborated with the non-profit Green Good Guardians whose objective is to rescue and repurpose used notebooks, and whose collection bins are already in place at every school in East Brunswick. Students and staff at the schools can drop off their used notebooks and now their used writing instruments as well at these easy to identify collection boxes, fulfilling the aim of the marker, pen, and pencil recycling project, which is to keep these frequently used but hard to recycle items out of the landfill.   

A successful launch of the initiative took place on this year's Freecycle Day in April where 14 pounds of writing utensils were collected. In addition to the school sites, a collection box has also been placed at the East Brunswick Public Library; collection bins will soon be put in houses of worship around the community as well. This is an important and much-needed initiative, serving to eliminate a great deal of unnecessary waste in East Brunswick.