Schools seek to ‘upcycle’ lunch trash

With kindergarten teacher Karen Dunlap as their leader, the Norristown school collects drink pouches, chip bags and cookie wrappers — hard-to-recycle waste — and sends them away to be upcycled into eco-friendly products. Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials, and it’s what the Trenton, N.J.-based company TerraCycle does with candy wrappers, energy bar wrappers and other consumer products, while at the same time paying the schools and charitable organizations that collect the used packaging.