Malt-O-Meal® and TerraCycle® Award $4,000 to Schools Through Greenest Classroom Contest!

MINNEAPOLIS, May 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- What could your school do with $2,500? Plenty, as Malt-O-Meal® and TerraCycle® found out through their Greenest Classroom contest, which invited schools across the country to submit their best ideas on how to make their classroom the most earth-friendly for a chance to win a $2,500 grant!

Inspired by Malt-O-Meal's new Bag The Box™ movement and its partnership with TerraCycle, the contest challenged entrants to submit their ideas and then vote for the classroom with the best earth-friendly concepts. The top 10 vote-getters were then narrowed down to four by a judging panel. The top prize of $2,500 went to River Place Elementary School (RPE) in Austin, TX, and the three first place winners included Don Roberts Elementary School in Little Rock, AR; UUCF-Circle of Life Cooperative Preschool in Frederick, MD; and Ridge and Valley Charter School in Blairstown, NJ who were each awarded $500.

The winning entry by River Place Elementary -"Help Us Develop the Green Thumbs of Tomorrow," focused on taking their current environmental program to the next level. Their idea included a covered outdoor classroom area complete with composting bins and rainwater harvesting barrels for lessons about recycling, decomposition, and how to save our natural resources. RPE is currently piloting the program with first graders, and aims to expand the program to cover kindergarten through fifth grade with the help of their Greenest Classroom prize.

Additional entries showcased a variety of innovative and creative ideas for going green, including the installation of solar panels, Walk-to-School Wednesdays, outdoor garden classrooms, recycling stations, and installing low-flow toilets and sink fixtures. To view all the Greenest Classroom entries, visit Malt-O-Meal's Facebook page. For more information, visit BagTheBox.com.

About Malt-O-Meal

Malt-O-Meal is the largest family owned cereal company in the U.S. The company has delivered quality cereal products and service since 1919, and manufactures many varieties of oatmeal, family-favorite ready-to-eat and all-natural cereals as well as its original, farina-based hot cereal. Today, one in 10 servings of cereal breakfast eaten every day is a Malt-O-Meal brand cereal. Dedicated to providing families access to better breakfasts at better prices, Malt-O-Meal is continually innovating to produce, package and transport its cereals in ways that reduce environmental impact. For more information about Malt-O-Meal and its cereal products please visit www.Malt-O-Meal.com or www.BagTheBox.com.

About TerraCycle

Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, TerraCycle's purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste. They do this by creating national recycling systems for the previously non-recyclable. The process starts by offering collection programs (many of them free) to collect waste and then convert the collected waste into a wide range of products and materials. With over 14 million people collecting waste in 11 countries, together they have diverted billions of pieces of waste that are either upcycled or recycled into over 1,500 various products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market. Their hope is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that today ends up in the trash.

SOURCE Malt-O-Meal Company