Back in August, I featured TerraCycle on The Campsite in Your Trash Can Be Someone’s Treasure. This is a company that recycles your trash, including garbage from trail food you bring along on your outdoor excursions, into handy products, from bags to office supplies. TerraCycle sent a bag made out of LUNA Bar wrappers for me to try, and so this past winter I put it to the test. I felt pretty proud carrying around my recycled bag (in this mountain town those wrappers are pretty recognizable, too). I often got asked where I got the bag and also received comments on how smart it was. I tried to carry different types of items in it, from groceries to books I was lugging around for research. I really loved the LUNA bag until the wrappers began to lift from the nylon ‘frame’ that give the bag its shape. I had only been using it for about 2 weeks.

Albe was one of my very first guests when I started Mrs. Green. We’ve come a long way baby! The tagline on their website? Eliminate The Idea of Waste. Love it! You also know I love numbers so ponder these and plan to join us: Number of people collecting trash through partnerships with Terracyle – 26,511,927. Waste units collected: 2,262,684,595. Dollars donated to charities: $3,491,776.12. Counting the days. This show sponsored by Environmental Development Group (EDG)

Terra Cycle is a pro-recycling/reuse organization that is awarding money or in-kind donations to non-profits that submit recyclable materials to them. For instance, Clif Bar will donate two cents to the nonprofit of your choice when you submit any wrapper from any of their products – twisted fruit, Z Bars, Builder Bars, and Clif Bars included.

TerraCycle began out of a business plan contest. Tom Szaky wanted to establish a company that would convert waste into fertilizer by feeding it to worms and then utilizing their poop. Apparently he had some success with it previously and wanted to give it a go. I think that is such a completely random idea but certainly helps keep the planet a bit more waste efficient. According to Wikipedia: Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value. This company makes wallets, bookbags, purses, kites, pencil pouches, picture frames, clocks, flower pots and a ton of other household objects out of materials that would have otherwise been rotting in a landfill somewhere. In the beginning, they were approached independently by Honest Tea, Stonyfeild and Clif Bar who all had problems with the disposal of their product wrappers and containers. This is what triggered their "upcycling" shift and pretty soon they became partners with a bunch of huge names like Nabisco, Capri-Sun and Frito Lay. To collect the waste, they set up programs through partnerships through schools and businesses and popular brands looking to promote more recycling of their packaging. These establishments would have collection boxes set up, specified for particular items that TerraCycle is interested in upcycling. People would put their trash in them and then the bins would be sent off and the trash would be converted into something useful. Garbage Moguls was a reality tv show on TerraCycle that aired a few years back on National Geographic. It followed the unorthodox creative processes that make their company successful. I think that this company is taking giant leaps in a direction that might make our planet last a little longer. It's important that we start working now to ensure that we can continue to live safe and healthy lives here for generations to come.

Are you looking for a great earth-friendly gift for your friends and family? Well a backpack made out of juice pouches, or a wallet made out of candy wrappers would be perfect for this holiday season. Lucky for you, TerraCycle makes those kind of products. TerraCycle is a company that diverts trash from landfills and creates new products out of it. Terra means earth, so TerraCycle is earth-cycling. TerraCyclewas founded in 2006 by Tom Szaky, 29. It all started in college when Tom and his friends started feeding the leftovers from their cafeteria to worms, and selling liquid worm poop in used bottles at hardware stores. Since then, they have grown to become "one of the fastest growing eco-friendly manufacturers in the world." In only three years, more than 20 million people are helping to collect trash in more than 70 thousand worldwide locations. In 2006, Inc. Magazine named TerraCycle "The Coolest Little Start-Up in America!"

Turn your old sports gear into running tracks, tote bags, rugs and more. You may know you can recycle running shoes after you’ve trained hard and run a race in them, but did you know you can recycle the race bib you wore in the competition, too? Cliff Bar, the makers of some of my family’s favorite snacks (like their MoJo bars), sent me these tips on recycling all sorts of sports gear. I thought I’d pass them along. CLIF BAR Wrappers. To keep wrappers out of landfills, CLIF BAR partnered with Terracycle in 2008 to allow consumers to send in used wrappers, which are then made into everything from bike pouches to lunch sacks—and CLIF BAR makes a two-cent donation per wrapper to the school or charity of the sender’s choice. If you’d like to hear more about CLIF BAR’s many recycling, waste reduction and sustainability efforts, please drop me a line!

Last month my fascination with how values and purpose can drive corporate culture, products and brand took me to Trenton, New Jersey to visit a company called Terracycle [www.terracycle.net ]. Terracycle, it turns out, is an incredible example of how staying true to your values and purpose can translate into a robust business. Terracycle has pioneered a business model that is not only helping solve our garbage crisis; it's also fueled their exponential growth over the last several years. Now with revenues of $20 million a year, they are rapidly creating a new asset class—garbage.

Last month my fascination with how values and purpose can drive corporate culture, products and brand took me to Trenton, New Jersey to visit a company called Terracycle [www.terracycle.net ]. Terracycle, it turns out, is an incredible example of how staying true to your values and purpose can translate into a robust business. Terracycle has pioneered a business model that is not only helping solve our garbage crisis; it's also fueled their exponential growth over the last several years. Now with revenues of $20 million a year, they are rapidly creating a new asset class—garbage.

Last month my fascination with how values and purpose can drive corporate culture, products and brand took me to Trenton, New Jersey to visit a company called Terracycle [www.terracycle.net ]. Terracycle, it turns out, is an incredible example of how staying true to your values and purpose can translate into a robust business. Terracycle has pioneered a business model that is not only helping solve our garbage crisis; it's also fueled their exponential growth over the last several years. Now with revenues of $20 million a year, they are rapidly creating a new asset class—garbage.

It seems like all we hear about these days is the “go green” movement. We are all told to drive hybrid cars, recycle and use paper — not plastic. In addition to this movement, the Virginia Tech Equestrian Team has joined the movement by collecting our food wrappers? The Equestrian Team has joined a brigade through a company called Terracycle. Terracycle is a relatively new company that aims to create bags, purses, kites, picture frames and backpacks, almost anything you can imagine out of old food wrappers. It’s really not as weird as you may think, and the products end up looking quirky and cute. Terracycle devotes its work to “upcycle” traditionally non-recyclable products and create usable items. The company statement claims that the products “keep waste out of landfills and contribute to a cleaner world.” It may seem a little far-fetched, but it’s amazing how one small movement can make such a large impact. Some of the products are available at major retailers such as Target and Walmart, while the entirety of its products are available to buy online. You also have the opportunity to buy either a pre-made product or to “create your own.” In creating your own product, you or your specific organization can choose the item you want to create, and then learn about the wrappers you need to collect. Different products are made with different types of wrappers, and these wrappers are then mailed to Terracycle which then upcycles the wrappers into various products.