Maybe this is a scenario that's happened at your house—an empty shampoo or conditioner bottle that finds its way into the bathroom bin rather than the recycling bin. Or hair dye boxes, makeup packaging, or even used lipstick cases that are tossed in a convenient garbage can. Here's an incentive that might inspire you to save those items and bring them to your local London Drugs Customer Service Counter for recycling—starting this August, 2 cents per beauty package or container you drop off for recycling will go to the Canadian Cancer Society! London Drugs, who has partnered with TerraCycle.ca and Garnier, is the first major retailer in Canada to introduce recycling collection boxes for all beauty packaging! The program fits in perfectly with the London Drugs mandate to divert as much weight as possible —currently over 42 million pounds!— away from landfills. You can read more about the London Drugs recycling program called the Green Deal at greendeal.ca.

FARMINGTON — The plastic No. 6 Solo cup that holds an icy cold beverage this summer can become a 10-cent donation to the United Way of the Tri-Valley Area. Through a special summer promotion by TerraCycle's UpCycle recycling program, the local United Way gets donations for each cup. It has already received $62.60 for its first shipment of 626 Solo cups, Lisa Laflin, executive director, said. Normally the cups might bring a cent or two but through August, they are worth 10 cents, she said. When Sarah Martin visited the United Way looking for ways to give back to the community, conversations led to ways to support the organization, Laflin said. Martin is also a member of the Sustainable Coalition at the University of Maine at Farmington. After talking with Laflin and meeting with the coalition, Martin volunteered to organize the recycling program and named the United Way as the beneficiary, Laflin said.

TerraCycle's UpCycling (recycling) Program comes to Franklin County to benefit the United Way of the Tri-Valley Area. The United Way supports non-profit community programs and volunteer efforts across the region; TerraCycle offers a wonderful way to support this organization in its efforts. Are you tired of your trash piling up? Would you like to be able to recycle more products? TerraCycle's goal is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that today must be sent to a landfill. They do this by creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste. TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. With more than 20 million people collecting waste in over 20 countries TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market.

I was excited when TerraCycle Canada agreed to be part of the Canadian’s Welcome, Eh giveaway because I think the company does a great service to the world by turning trash into such cool things. Although they’ve been around since 2001, I first heard about them when I was flipping through the channels and came across their Garbage Moguls show that was on a few years ago. I loved watching them come up with creative ways to recycle things like old dog food bags into brand new products.  I received their Teddy Grahams tote bag for review, and it’s absolutely adorable. It’s really well made too, with strong stitching that will definitely hold up to whatever you put in there. Plus it wipes clean really easy, making it perfect for the beach or picnics.

In honour of Earth Month, TerraCycle Canada is recognizing its top 10 waste-collecting schools. Hamilton’s Holbrook Elementary School placed seventh, diverting 7,448 units of waste from landfills during the past six months – September 2011 to February 2012. The school collects drink pouches, personal care and beauty packaging, plastic diaper packaging, inkjets, e-waste (cell phones and laptops) and coffee packaging through Brigades® programs sponsored by brands such as Kool-Aid, Garnier, Huggies and Tas- simo. Holbrook School earns anywhere from two points (equal to $0.02) to 500 points (equal to $5.00) for every piece of waste received.

Moms in need have babies in need. Research has shown that moms dealing with financial hardships often choose between buying diapers or other necessities like food. Some of these moms reuse soiled disposable diapers or leave a dirty diaper on their child longer than they should. You can help moms in need get access to clean diapers by recycling common household items for free with TerraCycle. Their newest charity partner is Huggies’ Every Little Bottom, an organization that provides free diapers and moms and babies that need them. In honor of all mothers this Mother’s Day, consider how you can help moms, babies, and the planet by signing up for one of the programs below.

You can help moms in need get access to clean diapers by recycling common household items for free with TerraCycle and their newest charity partner, Huggies’ Every Little Bottom, an organization that provides free diapers to moms and babies that need them. To help, sign up for one of these programs: Recycle Diaper PackagingHuggies and TerraCycle are now accepting shipments of any size of diaper and wipe packaging the Huggies Diaper Packaging Brigade. Parents can sign up to send in any brand of diaper packages and earn charity points. Recycle Cleaner PackagingMethod is expanding its program with TerraCycle to accept all kinds of cleaner packaging, regardless of type or brand. The newly dubbed Cleaner Packaging Brigade allows families, schools, or individuals to collect and recycle pumps, triggers, refill pouches and almost any cleaning product packaging to earn charity points. Recycle Baby Food Pouches - CONTEST This May, Sprout Foods is offering prizes to the three Sprout Foods Brigade participants that donate the most charity points to Every Little Bottom by May 31st! Moms can recycle baby food pouches to earn charity points and be entered to win a TerraCycle-Sprout Prize Pack, containing Sprout Organic Baby Food, Toddler Meals, Fresh Start cookbook by Sprout co-founder Tyler Florence and TerraCycle upcycled products.

As an environmental company, TerraCycle has a unique relationship with Earth Day. Celebrating our environment and spreading awareness and activism is wonderful, but we also like to remind people that the Earth needs to be taken care of every day. For the past few years, we’ve had an array of special events around Earth Day. In 2009, we launched our mini-series on National Geographic – Garbage Moguls – and in 2010, we had a Walmart Hotspot with sixty TerraCycle products were displayed in Walmart stores, right next to the products that they used to be! Think, drink pouch backpacks next to boxes of Capri Sun. Last year, 2011, we had the Old Navy Flip-Flop Replay in which we collected used flip flops at Old Navy stores across the country during the Earth Month. That same month, in partnership with Office Depot, we collected used pens and writing instruments at their retail locations.

TerraCycle, the New Jersey-based company that specializes in upcycling waste packaging into durable consumer products, will soon launch a program for disposable diapers, according to Waste & Recycling News. Ernie Simpson, global vice president of research and development for Terracycle, says the company is 90 percent finished with the development of a continuous process for collecting, sterilizing and processing used diapers. Certain parts of the diaper will be compostable, and the remaining materials will be upcycled into plastic lumber, pallets and outdoor furniture.

One of the dirtiest and most demonized portions of the municipal waste stream may soon be diverted from landfills. Developing a recycling solution for used disposable diapers, a biological amalgam of complexity, has been a top priority of the global research and development team at TerraCycle Inc., a Trenton-based company whose mission is to create innovative solutions for waste streams. TerraCycle’s team of scientists, led by Ernie Simpson, global vice president of research and development, is about to put a clothespin on its formula that will render dirty diapers into a material suitable for plastic lumber, pallets and outdoor furniture.