Post from the past: National Crayon Recycling Program

In last month’s National Geographic magazine I received a Green Guide insert that included lots of useful information including information about a cool recycling program called The National Crayon Recycling Program.

What this program does is take old, rejected, broken crayons and recycles them into fresh, new fun shaped crayons called Crazy Crayons.

Crazy Crayons are handcrafted into hundreds of shapes and themes; Dinosaurs, Butterflies, Flowers, Stars, Hearts, Fish, Fruit, Endangered Species, the Earth (just to name a few).

The proceeds from the sale of Crazy Crayons go back into the recycling program. (How cool is that?)

The National Crayon Recycling Program also helps the community by employing people with developmental disabilities to meticulously sort the crayons. (Another plus)

After the crayons are sorted, “they go back to the Crazy Crayon workshop to be melted down, strained, sterilized and hand poured into beautiful, functional works of art for kids to enjoy”

To date the program has redirected 43,000 pounds of unwanted crayons from landfills!

Why does this matter? (Besides the obvious reasons)

Because crayons are a petroleum product that take years to biodegrade and vast amounts of resources to make. According to the Crazy Crayons website, More than 120,000 pounds of petroleum based crayons are manufactured every day in the U.S.A.

The National Crayon Recycling Program definitely sounds like a program worth supporting and lucky for us we can!

We can collect, box, and ship them our old, broken, done being used crayons. All crayons are accepted for recycling, with or without wrappers, but they prefer the wrappers be on (it's easier to sort the colors that way).

You can ship your used crayons to:
CRAYON RECYCLING PROGRAM
721 Village Road
Pelican Lake, Wisconsin 54463

Since this program “exists solely because of the Earth caring people like you” shipping costs are not paid for by the company but they do provide shipping tips that will help keep costs down.

If you would like to purchase some Crazy Crayons you can do that too!

• The crayons are packaged in a recycled cardboard box
• Each set comes with a recycled paper doodle pad and highlighted with a raffia grass bow
• Some crayons are packaged in cellophane (which looks like clear plastic but is a product made from tree gum) that is biodegradable
• They also offer the packaging choice of reusable, resealable, recyclable poly-baggies

For more information about this great program or to learn how you can start collecting crayons for recycling visit The National Crayon Recycling Program website.