A group of students from Floral Street School gathered recently at 487 Grafton St. to show off their trash. Over the past few months, the students have collected six large bags of trash (primarily juice pouches and snack bags) that can be recycled. They were helped in this effort by a company called The Dumpster Divers. The trash will be sent to the recycling company Terracycle, which paid the students 2 cents for each piece of trash collected (about $50 total). The money will be used to benefit the school.

TerraCycle is an awesome program designed to help control the amount of waste produced from everyday items. They actually pay mothers, daycare centers, and schools for their waste which is then upcycled into rad products like backpacks, bird feeders, KITES, and bike pouches. Um, how freaking cool is that? I was seriously blown away by the amount of trash that one tiny baby can create- baby food jars/lids, diaper boxes and plastic wrap, little baggies for this and that...unfortunately, the list goes on. TerraCycle has partnered with major companies like Huggies and Sprout Organic Baby Food (who pay for the costs of the program which = 100% free everything for participants! WIN!) and they need your diaper packaging and food pouches (any brand) so that they can start turning them into things like bibs, diaper bags, and cosmetic cases.

Around here we are doing our best to minimize waste, buying things with less packaging, using more cloths than paper towels to clean up, and frankly, eating the kind of food that doesn’t come wrapped in plastic (amen?) but there will always be left overs. The food we feed OBaby’s when we’re traveling comes in pouches. Yes for heaven’s sake we eat chips from time to time. And cereal. But TerraCycle came up with innovative and adorable ways to reuse whatought to be waste. I absolutely love this idea. TerraCycle diverts packaging waste from landfills and helps raise consumer awareness about reducing, reusing and recycling.  By encouraging people to rethink ‘what is waste,’ TerraCycle is making it simple for consumers to have a positive impact on the environment. YOU can actually be on the recycling end of the equation by sending them your used packaging, including empty baby food pouches to be upcycled into baby-related items such as diaper wallets, bibs, backpacks and totes. Neat, huh? Participation is free and all shipping costs are paid.

  when you have kids, you tend to start thinking about things you may not have before. like garbage, landfills and what part you can do to help said kids have a better place to live long after we are gone. going green is such a big part of every day life these days (or at least, it should be – even small steps help). so i was thrilled to hear from TerraCycle and jumped on the opportunity to help them spread their mission. TerraCycle is a small company who takes non-recyclable waste (and pays 2 cents per piece to charity) and turns them into upcycled and repurposed eco-friendly items. they take the things that most of us throw in the trash, because we can’t throw it in the recycle bin, and make pencil pouches, binders, tote bags, shower curtains and picture frames – just to name a few. think capri suns, doritos, skittles and other packaging. they even take soda bottles and remake them into containers for dog shampoo and garden fertilizer.

A Far Northside school and two area churches earned money for their programs while keeping waste out of landfills. Students in Kathrynn Hodson's class at Spring Mill Elementary and groups at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church on the Far Southside and St. John's Lutheran Church on the Southeastside collected non-recyclable packaging such as makeup tubes through a program called the Aveeno Beauty Brigade, said Sara Koncius, TerraCycle spokeswoman. TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based company, takes the items like the tubes, chip bags or even bicycle chain and turns them into products such as backpacks, pictures frames and makeup pouches. The school and churches earned two cents for every tube collected. Any school group or nonprofit can sign up for the program, Koncius said. Both churches also are participating in other fundraising collections such as the Capri Sun Drink Pouch Brigade and the Frito-Lay Chip Bag Brigade.

In the second half of the show, Tom Szaky, founder of TerraCycle, joins John and Mike to talk about how his company is solving the problem of non-recyclable waste. In America alone, TerraCycle has 10.1 million people collecting waste — about 3 million pounds a day! — to convert into consumer products. TerraCycle converts everything from organic waste to plastic juice pouches into like-new products, in turn creating a whole reuse market that previously did not exist. “About 80% of the products we buy are not recyclable, and those are the ones we focus on creating solutions for,” Szaky says. He notes that TerraCycle has about 70,000 collection points — growing by about 500 a day — in countries around the world.

We've blogged about TerraCycle before but they're continuing to make headlines. If you're unfamiliar with TerraCycle, they donate cash to charities in exchange for your cigarette butts, razors, expired pills, plastic food wrappers, etc, find new uses for them, and sell those products for a profit. See how they're doing all this while turning an enormous profit, after the jump.   TerraCycle already has their trash collecting and recycling operations in six countries and plans to launch in 11 more. TerraCycle is currently a $40 million company but owner Tom Szaky hopes they can become the "Google of garbage", according to an article in the Telegraph.

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.

My mother called me last night to tell me about an interesting notice on the side of her Wheat Thins box. Apparently Wheat Thins has teamed up with Terracycle to recyle their packages. My mother proceeded to tell me a bit more about it and then sent me a link to read through today. Here’s what I found in their “About Us” page: TerraCycle makes affordable, eco-friendly products from a wide range of different non-recyclable waste materials. With over 50 products available at major retailers like Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market, TerraCycle is one of the fastest growing eco-friendly manufacturers in the world. Our hope is to eliminate the idea of waste by finding innovative, unique uses for materials others deem garbage. You can be a part of our eco-revolution, just sign up for one of our FREE Brigades or look for TerraCycle products at your local retailer.