Almost six months ago I wrote about a new program that I expected to sharply expand our recycling efforts and possibly even shift our entire business model. The program, I thought then, was about two weeks from its introduction. Turns out, we didn’t quite get there. What happened was a series of huge information technology delays — so many that the program has only just now gone into beta testing with an anticipated go-live date of mid-April. The goal is to be up and running in time for Earth Day (April 22), which is effectively Christmas for companies like TerraCycle. If it does come together, it will not be the first major evolution of our business model. We got started selling worm-waste plant fertilizer in reused bottles. Today, we still sell our plant food but we also have more than 30 million people around the world collecting previously non-recyclable waste streams that we turn into more than 1,500 products.

For my final post in this TerraCycle Refresher Week, I'd like to give you a glimpse into how TerraCycle operates here in our elementary school.

WILDWOOD — Throwing away an empty Funyuns bag or an old Laffy Taffy wrapper was routine for students at Glenwood Avenue Elementary School. Not anymore. Now, teacher John Fuscellaro and his homeroom students have launched a recycling program that has students, teachers and staff collecting everything from old Ziploc bags to empty toothpaste tubes. His class then sorts them and he sends them to TerraCycle, a company that turns the materials into new products and gives small cash payments to the school in return.

Tom Szaky's ambitions to turn one of America's fastest-growing private companies into a multi-billion dollar global empire didn't have glamorous beginnings. Szaky's Trenton-based TerraCycle got off the ground eight years ago out of a Princeton University student business plan contest. Szaky's idea was to establish a company that would transform biodegradable waste into high-yield fertilizer made from worm poop. Szaky, 28, drew his inspiration for the fertilizer plan from the success he and some of his Canadian high school buddies had in growing robust plants in fertilizer made from worm poop. He decided to drop out of Princeton during his sophomore year to give his full attention to the waste-into-fertilizer business he dubbed TerraCycle. Today, the company that Szaky founded in 2002 with a $20,000 machine for feeding organic waste to millions of little worms that would turn that waste into fertilizer has moved well beyond being merely a fertilizer-specialty manufacturer. It is a high-profile player in a niche corner of the recycling market known as "upcycling," in which used materials such as aluminum drink pouches, plastic soda bottles and plastic food wrappers are collected and transformed for use in new products without being broken down into their raw material components.

Students at Faith Lutheran School in Antioch are finding are finding a good turn for the environment is doubly advantageous.

CEO of TerraCycle, Tom Szaky, built an eco-friendly powerhouse before green was popular. In TerraCycle's own words, "It all started in 2001 as a simple organic fertilizer company. Two college students fed the leftovers from their cafeteria to an army of worms. They harvested the worm compost and liquefied it into a completely organic, ultra-effective fertilizer. Not having any money they could not buy the packaging they needed to start selling their fertilizer. Undiscouraged, they began to bottle their liquid fertilizer in used soda bottles they collected from people’s recycling bins, unwittingly creating the world’s first product made from and packaged entirely in waste!