Are you looking for that perfect gift for the eco-friendly person on your holiday list? TerraCycle makes a huge range of products ALL from recycled materials! We were thrilled to sample some of them for MamaBreak!

Belinda McDowell, Cincinnati Recycling Examiner July 24, 2011 This summer many Americans will have many barbecues, celebrations, and parties. So what are you doing with all the chip bags, cookie bags, juice drink containers that are generated from all these festivities this summer? Don’t throw them away! TerraCycle is here to help. TerraCycle is an organization that focuses on reducing waste by creating products with those items that are difficult to recycle or can not be recycled. The organization was founded by a Princeton University freshman in 2001 when he began producing organic fertilizer, packing liquid worm poop in used soda bottles. Waste is collected through brigades and anyone can join or create their own brigade. The waste are collected, sorted and sent to TerraCycle through the brigades. The brigades will earn 2 points or $0.02 per item collected. These points can be redeemable for planting trees, feeding the hungry, providing clean water to global communities, or cash to a non-profit of charity of choice. The types of waste streams collected include drink pouches, yogurt containers, candy wrappers, cookie packaging, MARS drinks fresh packs, chip bags, energy bar wrappers, bear naked packaging, kashi packaging, scott brand packaging and cereal bags just to name a few! For the complete list of waste streams collected go to TerraCycle.net

The school works with an East Coast company whose goal is to eliminate waste by not only recycling but upcycling, the process of re-using items close to their original purpose. Students and staff of a Burr Ridge school are stepping up their efforts to be green by focusing on difficult-to-recycle products that, until now, ended up in the school's garbage cans. Trinity Lutheran School sends drink pouches, potato chip bags and cookie wrappers to TerraCycle in New Jersey, which recycles trash typically not recycled. The company has about 45 brigades worldwide of individuals and groups such as Trinity that collect and send garbage.

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.