“We hope to wake up one day and become the new version of recycling, where every waste stream has a solution within the TerraCycle system.”
It all started with worms. When fed organic waste, worm ‘tea’ is produced through their excrement. One man began to bottle this concoction into used soda bottles as a natural plant food, by taking food scraps from the disposal bin at Princeton Dining Services.
That man was Tom Szaky. By the next summer, Tom met his first investor, and TerraCycle was born. As sales of the natural plant food grew, Tom began looking for new ways to reuse. His company began to take the items that nobody else wanted, cigarette butts, toothbrushes, juice cartons, expired pills and food wrappers, and explore ways or reusing anything and everything that was available.
“‘We want to be the recycling solution for everything that’s not recyclable today,’ Tom says, ‘But we don’t have all the answers yet.
Tom Szaky wants to be the rag-and-bone man to the world, collecting the rubbish no one else wants – cigarette butts, razors, expired pills and plastic food wrappers – and turning an enormous profit by finding new uses for it.
His US-based company TerraCycle already has rubbish collecting and recycling operations in six countries and expects to launch in 11 more (including Japan, Australia and Sweden) in the next year. He launched TerraCycle in Britain last September and in Ireland this month.
'We’re just a $40 million company at the moment,’ he says. But he plans to become the Google of garbage. 'A billion-dollar company doesn’t seem that big… why not!’
NORWAY - Girl Scout Troop 5326 recently completed a two month long recycling project in collaboration with Terracycle.
The girls in the troop earned their Forever Green patch and will receive a small check from the organization.
The purpose of the Terracycle organization is to reduce the amount of refuse that goes into the landfills; the organization then takes the refuse and turns it into useful and stylish products, backpacks, pencil cases, totes, lunch boxes, and folders. These products are available at local retail stores.
The Girl Scout troop helped by joining collection brigades: the Capri Sun Juice pouch brigade, the Lunchables Lunch kit brigade, and the Frito Lay chip bag brigade.
If you read their story – it all boils down to the fact that this is a company that takes recycled fruit juice pouches and turns them into backpacks, cooler bags and lawn fertilizer.
People are literally walking around with bags of old fruit juice packets on their backs.
They take all this recycled stuff, break it down, stitch it together and make a nice little product – all at pretty reasonable prices.
The kids collect everything from candy wrappers to water bottles and send them off to be turned into products for you, and money for their school.
"They're keeping all this from going into landfills," said Cindy Kelley, of the Delta Parent Teacher Organization.
"We found potato chip bags and drink pouches," said Ashgen Dozier, a student. "Then we send it off and they turn it into purses and stuff."
"Other fund raisers, the kids have to go and sell items and with this they already have the items," said Kelley. "This way they just have to take it to the school."
Kelley says she found out about the program from the back of a juice box. She checked it out and discovered all the kids had to do was collect trash either by picking up litter or looking into trash bins, or saving their waste.
"We took a little teasing because we look in trash cans," said Kelley. "But we use gloves and do it safely."
"We've raised $801," said Grant Coomer, a Delta Elementary student.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_f-ti5KUWw
Why is WalMart selling trash? Because it is coming repurposed from TerraCycle Inc. I’m sure you have seen some of their stuff. TerraCycle sells backpacks, kites and coolers made from reused drink pouches, chip bags and candy wrappers.
Their products are actually really cool looking. I see them everywhere. My son’s school even collects Capri Sun pouches for them. However, so far, the venture has lost money. The items they use are otherwise tough to recycle trash.
Thankfully for TerraCycle (and the landfills), WalMart agreed to sell dozens of the products in connection with Earth Day during April. If enough of the items sold during the trial period, the company would land a huge deal with WalMart. If I had realized that, I would’ve picked up a couple of their things. I saw them, but really wasn’t in the market for them in April.
A program that turns kids' trash into school cash helped send Truman Benedict Elementary School students to camp last month. Now they're back and showing off their own trash creations.
Fifth-graders at the San Clemente school boxed up Capri Sun juice pouches and chip bags earlier this year and sent them to a New Jersey company called Terracycle, which
"upcycles" <
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/school-240299-schools-recycling.html> trash into backpacks, kites and other products sold at stores such as Wal-Mart. In exchange, the school got $30 per student to go to a science camp and 2 cents for each piece of trash collected. (Click the "Graphics" tab above to see how the process works.)
A program that turns kids' trash into school cash helped send Truman Benedict Elementary School students to camp last month. Now they're back and showing off their own trash creations.
Fifth-graders at the San Clemente school boxed up Capri Sun juice pouches and chip bags earlier this year and sent them to a New Jersey company called Terracycle, which
"upcycles" trash into backpacks, kites and other products sold at stores such as Wal-Mart. In exchange, the school got $30 per student to go to a science camp and 2 cents for each piece of trash collected. (Click the "Graphics" tab above to see how the process works.)
The students attended the May 24-27 camp in Running Springs, Calif., and learned how to make their own upcycled products. Students had to create projects using five different kinds of trash.
A program that turns kids' trash into school cash helped send Truman Benedict Elementary School students to camp last month. Now they're back and showing off their own trash creations.
Fifth-graders at the San Clemente school boxed up Capri Sun juice pouches and chip bags earlier this year and sent them to a New Jersey company called TerraCycle, which
"upcycles" trash into backpacks, kites and other products sold at stores such as Wal-Mart. In exchange, the school got $30 per student to go to a science camp and 2 cents for each piece of trash collected. (Click the "Graphics" tab above to see how the process works.)
