Terracycle upcycles consumer waste into new salable goods. They primarily harvest their raw material from schoolchildren as part of charity drives, though they are now placing recycling stations at certain Walmart stores. At the Walmart centers they pay 3 cents per piece, but only for a narrow range of product packaging; the website supports a wider range of recyclables.

2. Walmart installed TerraCycle recycling and garbage bins outside of New Jersey stores <http://www.causeintegration.com/2010/walmart-recycling-program-pays-cash-for-trash-with-terracycle/> , and may expand the program nationwide. TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  takes an innovative spin on recycling and waste, taking things most people think are garbage -- like empty Capri-Sun juice bags, or Oreo cookie wrappers -- and fashioning them into cool products that kids can take to school as backpacks and more. TerraCycle has successfully "upcycled" $1.85 billion worth of garbage since its inception (and as a plug, TerraCycle is founded by a Fellow of StartingBloc <http://startingbloc.org/> , Tom Szaky).

Several guest speakers talked about how to reduce the amount of garbage that is not able to recycled, garbage that we produce daily. They also talked about how to “upcycle” garbage that we thought was all useless. And they talked about how to make schools green. Out of all the speakers, one really caught my attention. He made me realize the many things we can do with recycled items. This guest speaker was Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle.

It is called TerraCycle. TerraCycle recycles everyday products and turns them into new products. It helps the environment and your school at the same time. So far TerraCycle has collected $1,476,863.02 for charities and schools count as charities. The empty CapriSun packets collected each earn .02 cents and with every 500 collected you can send them to TerraCycle.

A company founded on worm excrement is turning trash into cash for St. Matthew's Lutheran School. Empty juice pouches, potato chip bags, Snicker's candy bar wrappers all are worth two cents or more to Kay Abts' students and St. Matthew's School.  Abts and the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade class have partnered with TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based firm that purchases the discarded wrappings. The erstwhile garbage will reappear on retailers' shelves as backpacks, pencil cases, totebags and other "upcycled consumer items."

TerraCycle names school one of top 100 America's Best Brigade in the Drink Pouch Brigade A Woodland elementary school has earned $774.12 for collecting drink pouches and is in the top 100 collecting schools among more than 30,000 schools participating nationwide.

There is something pure genius sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot in New Jersey and it is not Jon Bon Jovi (but I’d like it to be). It’s a giant green trash collection bin that will take all sorts of garbage you thought you couldn’t recycle … and pay you for it. This goes into the “why didn’t I think of that” category. TerraCycle, a company started in 2001 by a then 19-year old Princeton student, is partnering with some of the largest retailers in the nation to help people recycle things that were once believed to be true garbage. Then they upcycle them into actual products, and sell them.

På parkeringsplassene utenfor fem Wal-Mart-butikker i delstatene New Jersey og Pennsylvania dukket det nylig opp en stor, grønn container med hull til 28 ulike typer søppel - dette er avfall folk nå får betalt for å kaste. Riktignok får ikke de mye penger – bare tre cent (18 øre) pr. enhet som kastes, ifølge nettstedet good.is – men like fullt penger for avfall. Søppelet bruker selskapet til å lage et vidt spekter av nye produkter – alt fra skuldervesker laget av gamle saftbokser til blomsterkasser laget av resirkulert plast. Og Terracycles produkter kan selvsagt kjøpes på Wal-Mart, en kjøpesentergigant som i det siste har gjort mye for å fremstå som mer miljø- og klimavennlige. Se et bilde av innsamlingscontainerne her.

12 millioner elever

Selskapet ble dannet i 2001 av en da 19 år gammel student, og har satt seg som mål å endre måten amerikanerne forholder seg til søppelet sitt på. Ideen om å betale for avfallet er ikke ny. Terracycle har allerede et veletablert prosjekt der skoleelever fraktfritt kan sende inn søppel til selskapet mot at Terracycle betaler for søppelet i form av donasjoner til skolen eller et veldedig prosjekt. Ifølge selskapet selv, finnes det nå en brigade på 12 millioner skoleelever i USA som samler inn søppel som Terracycle kan gjøre om til trendy og miljøvennlige produkter. Antallet søppelenheter samlet inn, igjen ifølge selskapet, er hittil nærmere 1,9 milliarder, noe som har generert nesten 1,5 millioner dollar (ni millioner kroner) til veldedighet.

«Øko-kapitalisme»

Grunnleggeren, Tom Szaky, kaller det øko-kapitalisme. - Den første generasjonen bærekraftige selskaper laget veldig miljøvennlige produkter til en dyr pris. Produktene ble dyrere fordi de var bedre, miljøvennlige, økologiske og alt det der. Med øko-kapitalisme kan du gjøre det som er best for miljøet og for samfunnet – til en billig penge. Og søppelet er essensen i dette, sier Szaky til nettstedet Fastcompany. Han legger til at han ikke er interessert i søppelet fordi det har en nyhetsverdi, men fordi det er så billig. - Vi har en blyantholder som vi lager av gamle saftbokser. Ettersom saftboksene er så godt som gratis, kan vi selge blyantholderne for 1,99 dollar (12 kroner). Andre selger kanskje noe tilsvarende for ti dollar (60 kroner). Så der ser du forskjellen, sier Szaky.

There is something pure genius sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot in New Jersey and it is not Jon Bon Jovi (but I’d like it to be). It’s a giant green trash collection bin that will take all sorts of garbage you thought you couldn’t recycle … and pay you for it.

Teachers and students at Altruria Elementary used to see a lot of used Capri Sun drink pouches get thrown away. But, once they signed up for a program through TerraCycle, those once discarded pouches turned into hundreds of dollars. The school began earning two cents per pouch as part of a free nationwide program that pays schools and non-profits to collect non-recyclable waste that would otherwise go to a landfill.