TerraCycle Part IV: Legacy & Letting Go

I'm back! Did ya miss me? Still settling in to ma new digs and West Coast life- a whole new city of Trash to explore! Been here about a month, but I'm back from the hiatus! As promised, here is the last installment of the TerraCycle series! 

All good things must come to an end, even a fabulously witty blog post series such as this one. College also must eventually come to an end, for most of us at least. With the daunting feeling of "Life After College" approaching, I knew I would have to decide what would become of "my baby."

In college, it's hard to think of the long game when the experience has a deadline. After TerraCycle really started becoming successful and my ego was sufficiently stroked as to how well it was going, I started making plans to set it in motion for success after my graduation. For one, the norming process I talk about in Part I, never stops. New people enter college every year and a successful program sufficiently ushers them into the culture you've created. One way we did this was by this really cool commercial that was made for the campus TV Station. But it's also about leadership. I didn't want to just hand the job onto the next Hillel person who was there, I wanted them to want to own the project even if they weren't as invested in Trash as I was and let's face it, no one was going to be as into Trash as I was. 

But I was surprised at how the mini army had taken ownership of the project and even though TerraCycle was "my baby," it was their baby too. People who had been elbow deep in it with me from the beginning were just as invested as I was in the mission and impact the program was having. Programs are only as strong as the people in them and that is exactly who I was leaving TerraCycle in the hands of. (Now I heard whispers that the program got dropped a little, as expected. But I met the current girl from Hillel who is heading the project and it seems to be in good hands). 

Implementing a successful program is hard. Letting go is harder. But any program is only as successful as the people in it. All the trash warriors and partnerships we created are the reason I left TerraCycle at Virginia Tech feeling like I did something that worked. Now, like any project, I always feel like I could have done more, but after writing this series, I realize how much was done, by students, in such a short time. Hashtag Satisfied. 

By the time I graduated, we had diverted over 20,000 items from the landfill in three and a half years, resulting in about $200 raised for our service trip to New Orleans. Not too shabby for a project inspired by a banana bar.


Things we were collecting: cookie, candy, & energy bar wrappers, chip bags, solo cups, dairy containers