TerraCycle does some great things with recycled chip bags and drink pouches. In fact, you can get back to school supplies that are made out of your favorite food or drink product. This is a great way to keep the waste out of our landfills.
The
Capri Sun Pencil Pouch is made out of recycled Capri Sun pouches sewn together to form a zippered pencil pouch to hold all of your pencils in for school.
The
Doritos Spicy Sweet Chili Messenger Bag is made out bag wrappers and is great to put school books in or homework. The strap is adjustable and the bag is lightweight.
There are a variety of other recycled products to choose from. Head on over to
TerraCycle to view more products.
Shiny new products are coveted by consumers, but they quickly wear out, become obsolete or outlive their usefulness. Disposed goods are then donated to charity, stashed in some storage unit, or tossed in the trash. But some companies and craftsmen have explored another option with creativity and brio: Turn the stuff into something else you can sell.
Here we cite seven examples of merchants doing just that. We found quite a few of our fun specimens on
Etsy, which seems to be a hotbed of solo artisans and small teams of dreamers producing delightful, one-of-a-kind, sustainable goods.
From Snack Wrappers to Snazzy Totes
You might think that once you're done with a snack wrap or juice pouch, that's it. But you could just as easily collect those items and send them to
TerraCycle in Trenton New Jersey. There, they make all sorts of nifty items such as
tote bags from CapriSun pouches and wrappers from Doritos and Lays bags.
"We work with about 40 different kinds of products and packaging," says Lauren Taylor, director of U.S. public relations. "Some of the more interesting ones are cigarette butts we can recycle into industrial uses, such as palettes. We also have a plant caddy that's available at Target that's made from drink pouches." Another cool form of recycling: They've taken some of that money and donated more than $6.6 million to charity.
What is upcycling? According to a very cool company, TerraCycle, upcycling is defined as using every aspect of waste as value. Every year billions of drink pouches and candy wrappers and of in dumpsters and landfills across America. Check out these items below and see upcycling in action. See the volunteering section at highschoogle to learn more about how you can be part of TerraCycle’s Brigade movement, by starting a club at your school.
What is upcycling? According to a very cool company, TerraCycle, upcycling is defined as using every aspect of waste as value. Every year billions of drink pouches and candy wrappers and of in dumpsters and landfills across America. Check out these items below and see upcycling in action. See the volunteering section at highschoogle to learn more about how you can be part of TerraCycle’s Brigade movement, by starting a club at your school.
With kindergarten teacher Karen Dunlap as their leader, the Norristown school collects drink pouches, chip bags and cookie wrappers — hard-to-recycle waste — and sends them away to be upcycled into eco-friendly products.
Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials, and it’s what the Trenton, N.J.-based company TerraCycle does with candy wrappers, energy bar wrappers and other consumer products, while at the same time paying the schools and charitable organizations that collect the used packaging.
From its humble beginnings selling worm-poop fertilizer, this New Jersey product manufacturer upcycles retail trash into retail treasure.
Each and every product on this earth has a life span,” said Tom Szaky, CEO and vice president of licensing and product development at
TerraCycle, Inc. “The end-of-life reality of a bag of potato chips is that the food ends up in the toilet and the bag ends up in the garbage. Same with a pen; you buy a pen, the ink runs out. The only difference is, some products can be recycled easily and others not so easily.”
This is like the ultimate way to be green… having NO trash. I like to think we’re pretty green – we recycle, we compost, we barely have any trash. But we do have trash. Look at this way: in nature, there is no trash. What is waste from one, becomes food or shelter for another. Everything is used. Why can’t we do that? That’s where TerraCycle comes in! They take what cannot be recycled and they “upcycle” it to make products you can use.
TerraCycle is fairly new, but is quickly spreading around the world. They pay schools, daycares, families, anybody! 2 cents to send in waste that would otherwise sit in a landfill. How do you get involved and help save the earth?
Unfortunately, just like in most towns, there’s a limit on what sort of materials they accept. Which is why when
TerraCycle emailed about their program I was so excited! TerraCycle is a small (but growing!) company that takes normally non-recyclable products and turns them into cool and useful stuff.
