"O Bopp é um plástico e por isso pode ser reciclado. Nosso trabalho é desenvolver produtos que possam ser fabricados com o material", diz Guilherme Brammer, presidente da TerraCycle. Entre os produtos que podem ser feitos com as embalagens de salgadinhos estão mochilas, embalagens de cosméticos e até autopeças, como para-choques.

“The diapers are very gross, horrible, but the shipping containers hold 100% of the smell,” assures Terracycle’s Albe Zakes. “We tested this by hiding them around the office and seeing if anyone noticed; they did not.”

“The diapers are very gross, horrible, but the shipping containers hold 100% of the smell,” assures Terracycle’s Albe Zakes. “We tested this by hiding them around the office and seeing if anyone noticed; they did not.”

Ginger chicken with bananas and brown rice, baked sweet potatoes with white beans, and for dessert roasted pears and apricots. Sound like an inspired meal? It's baby food from Sprout, organic gourmet baby food cooked up by Chef Tyler Florence of the Food Network, father of three, cookbook author and gastronomic entrepreneur. As he says, giving babies healthy choices early on establishes food preferences for good food. After all, they’ve got something like 7,000 more tastebuds in their tiny mouths. Last year I heard Dr. Alan Green decry that the #1 choice of most doctors for babies’ first solid food was processed white rice cereal. The author of Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care, blames long-term health problems on kids’ dependency on sugary starchy food, and it all begins with that first bite. Dr. Green happily reported at this year’s Natural Products Expo that his “White Out” campaign worked -- just one year later, 93% of pediatricians now recommend feeding real whole foods to babies. “It’s a dramatic reversal,” he said, proudly explaining the thinking behind “Color In” for babies. No need to sneak fruits and veggies into kids' diets, if they've started with a banana.

"White Out" and "Color In"

Today, young parents are choosing to skip the rice-syrup filled mushy goop, making their own purees. In 2009, Treehugger reported on "7 Great Green Baby Foods," noting that unfortunately organic baby food wasn’t as common as it should be. In just a few years, there are plenty of delicious, gourmet options for tots and tykes, if Expo West is an indication. And without thickeners, added sugars or salts. Plus most of these foods are packaged in BPA-free pouches that can be upcycled through TerraCycle. Plum Organics is still going strong, and there's also Baby Gourmet's Veggie Lentil Dahl, Oh Baby'ss gingery Wise Punkin and minty greens, Ella’s Kitchen Four Bean Feast, and Happy Family’s line of superfoods mixed with banana, peach and mango. I don’t know about kids eating popped puffs, even if the colorful fruits and vegetable snacks and have only one gram of sugar. But with tastes like blueberry & purple sweet potato, spinach & apple, and strawberry & beet, maybe Plum Organics could make them for adults? Yum.

Hey you! That’s not how it’s spelled is it? What am I talking about? You wonder.. What are Dropps? You ask !… Well, they are pre-measured, compact (6x concentrated) laundry detergent in these convenient, easy to use, dissolvable detergent packets that you throw into your Washer and go. Sweet right? Yeah, they sure are. There’s no mess, no heavy jug to LUG around, measuring and reading the back to get the amount just right (different detergents with different rules) plus they are Eco friendly, which in my opinion is the #1 reason why I even wanted to try them, well, not the only reason, but the fact that Dropps is greener for the planet, it’s formula has been approved by the EPA’s Design for Environment (DfE) program, it recognizes formulas with safer chemistry.

How can you use flip-flops in a new way? One company found the answer. It used about 20,000 old flip-flops to build playgrounds for kids! Those flip-flops would have otherwise ended up in the trash.

As a proactive way to help the environment and also raise money for charity, Saint Xavier University students are being highly encouraged to take part in the university’s terracycling efforts. Although the terracycling program has already had a strong presence at the university, one of the program’s main organizers— Mercy Students for Peace and Justice (MSPJ)—would like SXU students to become more informed on what exactly terracycling is. “It’s a program created to recycle things that normally aren’t recyclable,” said Rachael Dean, president of MSPJ, as she briefly summed up the main purpose ofterracycling. Besides mentioning the program’s main mission, Dean also further commented on what occurs to the items that are collected through theterracycling bins. “We collect all these items and we send them to the company. The company then sorts through it and they make things out of what we gave them,” said Dean. The terracycling program, as Dean said, creates different items from many of the things that have been put into its bins. Several of the items manufactured include pouches, backpacks, totes and even notebooks.

TerraCycle Brigade member Wanda Harwell was featured as the Awesome Woman of the Month in April's Ladies' Home Journal

Conscient de l’importance du tri sélectif et du recyclage (nous récupérons déjà les bouchons), l’école récupère dès maintenant tous les stylos à bille, feutres, porte-mines, correcteurs, marqueurs, surligneurs.