Prepare to celebrate all things nerdy on May 25

When I found out there was a holiday called Geek Pride Day (celebrated each year on May 25 in honor of the release date of the first Star Wars movie in 1977), I was pretty excited. First of all, yes to niche holidays. Second of all, yes to anything celebrating people’s passion for all things geeky. Goodbye, NBA Finals; hello, Evil Dead marathons! Put a photo of your favorite engineer in this TerraCycle Circuit Board Picture Frame ($12.99 at DwellSmart). (Get a deal with DwellSmart sales.)

Terracycle Speakers: these M&M speakers done by Terracycle are made with recycled M&M boxes, in fact everything Terracycle makes were previously trash, which in the green world, we call this process upcycling. They also donate a small percentage of each trash a school or an individual sends them and so far have donated over $1.5M. You can also find other cool gift ideas such as a circuit board desk clock, a bike chain frame or an Oreo wrapper kite.

Terracycle recycled products, Terracycle.netThe next time you throw out that bag of potato chips or box of M&Ms, it could end up in your next consumer electronics gadget. Terracycle.com offers a whole bunch of cool items made from recycled material, and the company sent us a bunch of fun stuff. My favorite was the pair of speakers made from a box of Peanut M&Ms, which created a nice pair of portable speakers for my iPod. The cool part? The passive speakers required no batteries! We also got a clipboard made from a recycled motherboard, a set of circuit board coasters, and photo frames made from old circuit boards.

You all have heard of Terracycle, haven't you? If you haven't, listen up! Terracycle a super cool company that makes super cool stuff out of trash, like juice pouches, potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers, and make them into very cute, useable stuff, like tote bags, pencil pouches, lunch boxes, clipboards, fences, toys... The list goes on and on and on! Check out their site to see what all they recycle. You can actually start a brigade to collect trash and they will pay your organization! Check out the brigade program here.

I stumbled onto a company that turns the stuff people throw away every day into items that people also use every day. For example, do you eat Clif or Odwalla Bars while on a ride and then throw away the wrappers? Well, TerraCycle takes your discarded wrappers and turns them into messenger bags. Or how about coffee – this one’s not so obvious: coffee beans grow on trees with leaves and TerraCycle turns those leaves into high-quality copier paper, saving a little bit of tree in the process. Some other neat products that TerraCycle makes from your garbage: – plant pots made from computers and fax machines – clip boards made from circuit boards and juice boxes – stereo speakers from Starburst and M&M wrappers And see more on DwellSmart. Let’s face it, there’s lots to throw away, every day and everyone who eats or lives on the planet. That’s a lot of garbage! But TerraCycle is more than just reusing these pieces of trash to make useful, reusable items. For every piece of garbage that you send them, they will make a small donation ($.02) to the charity of your choice.

The average school lunch generates 67 pounds of waste during one school year (EPA.gov). That total is just for one child. Can you image the huge amounts of waste for every school child in the country?   TerraCycle  <http://www.terracycle.net/> is a company that is working to upcycle some of that school lunch waste along with other products that we normally toss in the trash can, without giving them a second thought. Here is how Terracycle works:  Your school or group collects items like Capri Sun pouches, candy wrappers, and chip bags.  There is actually 27 different collection brigades <http://www.terracycle.net/brigades?show_all=true> !  You send the "trash" that you school or group has collected to Terracycle.  Terracycle upcycles the trash into tote bags <http://www.terracycle.net/products/18-Drink-Pouch-Tote> , lunch boxes <http://www.terracycle.net/products/22-Round-Drink-Pouch-Lunchbox> , and clip boards <http://www.terracycle.net/products/78-Circuit-Board-Clipboard-> , just to name a few items!

"We'd see kids throwing out their Capri Sun pouches after every class party," recalls Blacow Elementary Booster Club President, Emily Swanson. "It was such a shame to see so much waste." It did not stop with just Capri Sun pouches; paper and food waste desecrated the school with waste. Collecting ideas on solutions to the problem, the school now earns money from students' litter. Blacow Elementary recently joined with a nationwide "Brigade" program operated by TerraCycle, a recycling company. TerraCycle accepts waste materials and recycles them to form new products. The company pays about two cents for each acceptable wrapper or bag collected. For example, for an empty Lays chips bag, the school receives two cents. Brigades are basic areas that collect and pay for the donated items. Officially founded in the fall of 2001 by college student Tom Szaky, TerraCycle has grown to create various products ranging from Capri-Sun rectangular lunch boxes to a circuit board clipboard. This merchandise is sold to leading corporations such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot. Instead of going into a landfill and increasing carbon emissions, waste is turned into something useful.

If you don't already know, TerraCycle is an ingenious company! They upcycle trash into fabulous, new products. In doing so, they save some landfill space and pay those that sent the products in. Pretty good deal. Because they are so great, they are sponsoring a giveaway for my lovely readers. One lucky reader will win all of this: This includes: Circuit board coasters Pencil case made out of juice containers Tote bag made of Luna wrappers Spray bottle of Dig Stop for pets Spray bottle of Trash Can Protector

As part of a new collaboration, a handful of residents is turning trash into cash. It's an effort to go green while getting green. Gloria Gilbert, founder of the Westford Farmer's Market, recently launched Sustainable Westford -- a nonprofit platform created to organize local groups with the common goal of promoting green initiatives. "There are many groups covering a range of topics including water pollution, organic farming to alternative energy however there is not one platform. They're spread out all over the place," Gilbert said. "I wanted to partner with local programs with the same mission as ours -- to create an eco-friendly and vibrant Westford." One of the first programs Gilbert teamed up with in town is Upcycle It! created by fellow resident Kristina Greene. The initiative collects non-recyclable items such as chip bags, candy-bar wrappers, coffee bags and juice pouches in a number of drop-off bins around town. The bins are collected weekly and then sent to Terracycle, an international company that takes the "trash" and makes it into a number of products. Skittles wrappers become an insulated cooler tote bag. Crushed computers and fax machines are morphed into flower pots. Circuit boards are reused as clipboards and drink coasters. Oreo Cookie packaging is transformed into a kite and much more. The innovative "recycling" is not the only benefit to Westford. Each piece of trash that's collected and sent in is worth anywhere from two cents for chip bags to 25 cents for cell phones. All the money Greene collects from Upcycle It! is then donated back to Westford schools.

As part of a new collaboration, a handful of residents is turning trash into cash. It's an effort to go green while getting green. One of the first programs Gilbert teamed up with in town is Upcycle It! created by fellow resident Kristina Greene. The initiative collects non-recyclable items such as chip bags, candy-bar wrappers, coffee bags and juice pouches in a number of drop-off bins around town. The bins are collected weekly and then sent to Terracycle, an international company that takes the "trash" and makes it into a number of products. Skittles wrappers become an insulated cooler tote bag. Crushed computers and fax machines are morphed into flower pots. Circuit boards are reused as clipboards and drink coasters. Oreo Cookie packaging is transformed into a kite and much more. The innovative "recycling" is not the only benefit to Westford. Each piece of trash that's collected and sent in is worth anywhere from two cents for chip bags to 25 cents for cell phones. All the money Greene collects from Upcycle It! is then donated back to Westford schools.