Since 2001, TerraCycle has risen from a dorm-room start-up selling worm poop-based plant food into a internationally-known growth business.   Its focus: providing consumer packaged goods companies and retailers with cause marketing programs and nonprofits with fundraising opportunities. TerraCycle has over 70,000 schools and charities collecting waste globally and they have earned collectively almost 4 million dollars just by recycling more! Whether you work for a large company, a start-up or an NGO, you'll pick up valuable lessons from Global VP Albe Zakes based on Terracyle's decade of turning "waste into wonder".

Weltweit wachsen die Müllberge, nachhaltige Entsorgung ist teuer. Das US-Unternehmen Terracycle geht einen anderen Weg: Es nutzt Abfall als Rohstoff für neue Produkte - die es jetzt auch in Deutschland gibt. Es riecht nach Benzin, doch die Straßen sind leer. Nur das Rauschen des Verkehrs auf dem nahen Highway ist zu hören. Hier am Rande von Trenton, der Hauptstadt von New Jersey, deren Einwohnerzahl schrumpft und die unter der steigenden Kriminalitätsrate leidet, verrosten unzählige Autowracks hinter hohen Drahtzäunen. Wacklige Strommasten lenken den Blick in den grauen Himmel. Der einzige grüne Lichtblick ist das leuchtende Graffiti auf der mit Einschusslöchern übersäten Betonfassade eines alten Fabrikgebäudes. "Terracycle - Outsmart your waste", "Upcycle" und "Zero Waste" steht dort an der Wand.

In addition to "upcycling," or directly reusing materials to create new ones, TerraCycle also grinds and reprocesses items like pens and glue bottles into plastic lumber, trash cans, watering cans and planting pots. "Take a walk around your local supermarket," suggests Albe Zakes, director of publicity for TerraCycle. "A vast majority of the consumer packaging that you're going to find is non-recyclable." He starts to list products: candy wrappers, chip bags, drink pouches, pens, glue bottles, tape dispensers ... And it becomes obvious that this guy has thought a lot about trash.

TerraCycle is a pioneering upcycling and recycling company which collects non-recyclable trash and repurposes it into new, practical, eco-friendly products. Their line of products includes backpacks, pencil cases, notebooks, messenger bags, lunchboxes, binders, and homework folders as well as items like wine cork corkboards, picture frames, coasters, mp3 boomboxes & more. The trash is collected by student groups at schools across the country. Groups, which are called “Brigades,” can collect trash from juice pouches to chip bags to computer keyboards. They sign up for free, and then send their trash in to TerraCycle for free as well.

Article in mainstream Romanian newspaper detailing TerraCycle’s recycling and TerraCycle’s design work (featuring Tiffany Threadgould!).

Could TerraCycle and Guerillapps have hit upon the next FarmVille? The Trash Tycoon Facebook game that launched yesterday challenges players to find and recycle trash that can be used to make eco-friendly products that translate into game money and points. Its sponsors include TreeHugger and the CarbonFund.org, as well as TerraCycle.

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.

TerraCycle Inc. aims to make money by reusing the hard-to-recycle trash the U.S. produces each year — but it first needs to find out if Walmart Stores Inc. and other retailers think there's enough demand for its products.    The company, which sells backpacks, kites and insulated coolers made from reused candy wrappers, drink pouches and potato-chip bags that normally would have gone to landfills, has so far been a money-losing proposition. But Walmart, the world's largest retailer, agreed to sell dozens of TerraCycle products in about 3,400 stores in a promotion tied to Earth Day during the month of April.   If TerraCycle sold enough to land an extended deal with Walmart or another big retailer, the Trenton, New Jersey, company could turn its first profit this year. "The pressure is as high as I can think of," says founder Tom Szaky.