NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A new show wants to redefine the meaning of trashy television. "Human Resources," which debuts Friday on the Pivot network, will focus not on hard-partying beachgoers but on a socially conscious recycling company. The "reality docu-drama" chronicles what it is like to work at the Trenton-based company TerraCycle Inc. Founded in 2001 by then-20-year-old Princeton University student Tom Szaky, TerraCycle collects hard-to-recycle items, from potato chip bags to cigarette butts, and transforms them into colorful consumer products. It donates a portion of its proceeds to charity. Szaky hopes the show will inspire a new generation to become socially conscious business entrepreneurs. "A lot of people have said the show is like a 20-something socially conscious reality version of 'The Office,'" Szaky said, referring to the long-running mockumentary-style comedy that had British and American versions. "I'm a big fan of content with a purpose; there isn't that much TV out there like this." Szaky is confident the show will have wide appeal, and he sees it as part of "trying to accomplish different ways of getting our message out." A trailer for the premiere episode features quick-cut edits of droll and jokey asides from employees who both embrace and mockingly disdain TerraCycle's workplace culture. The indefatigable, Budapest-born Szaky, now 32, is a main draw, as he offers a frenetic tour of the graffiti-walled, recyclables-filled office and evangelizes about a trash-less future and his goal to "eliminate the concept of waste." With its "superhero socks" theme days, Nerf gun fights, dogs wandering the office and yoga breaks, a green company that is both successful and socially conscious can be a lot of fun, he says. "The main point is to get more people to know about TerraCycle," Szaky said. "The second is to really inspire young people to look at becoming entrepreneurs for socially responsible reasons." The company is committed to remaining in Trenton, Szaky said, bringing what he describes as a "Silicon Valley vibe" to the city that once boasted "Trenton Makes, The World Takes" — words that still appear on the Lower Trenton Bridge spanning the Delaware River — but has since fallen on hard times with the large-scale flight of manufacturing. Szaky said the company's 22 other offices around the world are located in similarly economically depressed areas. Szaky says he wants people to feel inspired when they watch the show and to realize they can make a difference, one cigarette butt or discarded juice box at a time. "If people like the show, send us your garbage — totally free," he added, pointing out that TerraCycle's website offers free pre-paid shipping labels for people to mail in their trash. Belisa Balaban, executive vice president of original programming at Pivot, said the network was immediately impressed by TerraCycle's employees and mission. "We knew they were a perfect fit for Pivot, perfectly aligned with everything we want to do, to create positive social change through entertainment," Balaban said. "TerraCycle is an amazing company that's doing amazing things," she added. "It's a funny place to spend time at, a place with great bold characters who are unique individuals and extremely passionate about what they do." The network plans to air 10 episodes of the show in its first season.

TV Picks: Pivot’s New Docu-Series ‘Human Resources’ Spotlights Terracycle, a Global Company, and its Quirky Employees as They Recycle and Up-Cycle Common Products to Eliminate the Very Idea of Trash. The series begins August 8 at 10pm ET/PT What if there were a use for everything we throw away? If so, could we eliminate the idea of trash altogether? I first learned of TerraCycle when I was pitched YakPak TerraCycle bags for Monsters and Critics. Years later, I finally met Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, at the recent Summer press tour for the television critics’ association (TCA) at the Beverly Hilton this past July, where he was on panel for Pivot to introduce his now award-winning international company that takes incredible amounts of anything and everything that is landfill bound – from millions of used potato chip bags to tens of millions of cigarette butts – and recycles, upcycles, or reuses all of it. On Friday, August 8th at 10 pm ET/PT, Pivot will premiere “Human Resources,” a new kind of docu-comedy that pulls the curtain back on life at TerraCycle, one of the fastest growing green businesses in the world and whose mission is to “eliminate the idea of waste®.” Produced by Left/Right, the half-hour original series will debut as a lead-in to the second season premiere of the critically acclaimed series “Please Like Me.” TerraCycle, widely considered to be the world leader in the collection and repurposing of non-recyclable, post-consumer waste, is run by 32-year old entrepreneur and Princeton dropout Szaky, who encourages his employees to come up with bigger and better ways of transforming what we consider “waste.” The eclectic staff of this New Jersey-based company is very much like a family and where there is family, there are characters. The 120 employees run the gamut from science geeks and eco-passionates who take time away from their (recycled) desks to snack on kale chips and take part in office yoga, to skeptical, more straight-laced employees who work hard and provide a balance to the crazy antics that sometimes bend the rules of corporate America. The colorful employees seen on the 10 half-hour episodes include Albe Zakes, VP of Global Marketing & Communications, who started at TerraCycle as an intern eight years ago. His gift of reading people is credited as a major reason why the company has not paid a dime for advertising under his tenure; Tiffany Threadgould, Chief Design Junkie, who spearheads themed activities in the office including “rainbow day” and “superhero sock day,” and always has her Pomeranian, Tia, in tow (and costume!); Rick Zultner, Scientist, who is a key player in making Tom’s vision’s become a reality; and Dean Innocenzi, Graphic Designer, who drops beats while tagging TerraCycle’s Headquarters. Inspired by the series, Pivot and TerraCycle have joined forces with Recycle Across America to roll out Recycle Right!, a social action campaign focused on transforming recycling and improving the economics and prevalence of sustainable packaging and manufacturing. The campaign will feature informational videos, tips and practical solutions – such as standardized recycling labels — to help everyone recycle right and increase the amount of quality raw recycled materials available to be used by manufacturers looking to lessen their environmental footprint.

EPISODE ONE: “TALKIN’ TRASH”

Premieres Friday, August 8 at 10:00pm ET/PT Tom and TerraCycle are close to finalizing a deal for a coffee table book of DIY upcycling ideas but the team first needs to create a sample chapter. In preparation for a meeting with the publisher, Albe asks Dean to work on being more professional.

EPISODE TWO: “FROM ZERO TO HERO”

Premieres Friday, August 15 at 10:00pm ET/PT In an effort to expand their Zero Waste recycling program to small businesses, Rhandi and Dan work on developing a successful sales pitch strategy. While accompanying them on their pitches, Stephen stumbles upon a potential new waste stream.

Tom spoke at length at the TCAs about the show, and below are some choice excerpts to give you a better understanding of the company ethos and what you can do to get involved:

On how TerraCycle makes a profit… TOM SZAKY: In focusing on non-recyclable waste, the reason that this bottle here is recyclable but the clothing that we’re wearing or the carpeting we’re sitting on is not is because there’s value in this material. Aluminum or PET is so valuable it covers the cost of collecting it and processing. But 80 percent of objects in the world fall on the other line of that spectrum. In other words, it costs more to collect and process than the material is worth. Dirty diapers, used hygiene products, those would be quintessential examples of that. So we first rely on get funding from somebody. It could be a consumer product brand. We work with every major consumer product company out there. It could be municipalities. It could be even individuals paying for the service to be able to recycle non-recyclables. And that’s maybe 75 percent of our revenue. And then we convert these objects either through reuse, that would be like refurbishing a cell phone or upcycling. Tiffany, you want to stand up and show your she’s wearing a dress made from old what are those? And then, if that’s not, then we look at recycling where we melt it, and that’s maybe 25 percent of our revenue. But both questions asked profit, so I want to just sort of hit this on the head. One of things that I struggle with as a business person is when I talk at business schools quite often, I always ask the group what’s the purpose of business? And everyone says, well, the purpose of business obviously is profit, how much money we can make for our shareholders. And I take a slightly different twist on it. I think profit is important as an indicator of health. Are you going to be around? And if you’re profitable, you will be around to continue what you do. And we exist because we want to solve waste and we want to do that as big as possible. So we’re profitable and we maintain profit, but we don’t focus on it. In fact, I limit our profit to 1 percent of our revenue, and I do that by taking all the extra money that we get and reinvesting it into more R&D, coming up with more ways to recycle incredibly complex things. And that’s how we were able to invent chewing gum recycling, cigarette recycling, dirty diaper recycling. Even next year you’ll see used fem hygiene recycling here in the U.S. in a national way. I mean, that takes real research and science, and so that’s how we work as a social business. On how do you start doing a business like this… TOM SZAKY: Well, we’re 11 years in. We operate in 11 countries. We just opened sorry, 26 countries. We just opened our office in Tokyo three months ago, so that’s our furthest east we go. And then we also operate in Australia, which is an amazing place to be. And we’ve had 11 years of growth. This year, about 25 million or so will be our revenue, but I don’t think that’s the most important indicator. Revenue is just one thing to look at. But maybe another way to look at it is we have 60 million people collecting on our platform. 75 percent of American schools run a TerraCycle platform of some kind. This year we will have processed, just this year alone, 50 million kilos, or 100 million pounds, of non-recyclable waste, stuff that we could only throw out. So that’s maybe a better indicator to look at what we’ve really done. Revenue is just more how much money moves around, but it’s still not insignificant. So your other question is how did this all start. Well, honestly, 11 years ago, when I went I was in Canada originally, going to high school there and ended up getting into Princeton. And then you had to stop worrying about high school. So my friends and I, we started growing pot in our basement, which Canada is a little more flexible with that. And as 19 year old guys, we didn’t realize how hard that was to cultivate ganja in a controlled environment with lights and all this jazz and we could never make it work until one day this was six months later, my friend who became the gardener said he had solved the plants, and it turned out he had done that by taking organic waste, feeding it to worms, and the worms would poop out worm poop and that made the plants grow incredibly well. And that was the inspiring moment. I was really fascinated after that, with the concept of garbage because he solved his plants by taking organic waste and feeding it to worms. And suddenly the whole question of garbage really was something that was floating around in my head quite a bit. And TerraCycle began as a company trying to come up with business models to eliminate the idea of garbage. Because if we can look at garbage positively, is there really such a thing? And then I left school and that was 11 years ago. On making objects transformed into something that people actually use… TOM SZAKY: TerraCycle or even the concept of recycling is not the answer to garbage. We are sort of like the pill you take when you have a headache. But the real question to reflect on is why do you have the headache to begin with. And recycling is the response to garbage, or TerraCycle. The real question is why do we have all the garbage to begin with and we’re all the guilty parties. We buy way too much stuff. And so if you really want environmental problems to go away, we have to reflect on that as a consumer and buy very differently. Now, directly to your point, what we used to do at the very beginning of our journey was we used to make products ourselves. And because of this question was floating around our minds, the exact one that you asked, we decided to change that model about seven years ago and we don’t make anything directly. What we do is we collect all this phenomenal amount of waste. [Our design] team thinks about how we can upcycle or reuse it. Then we have a team of scientists who think about how we can look at the polymer science of it and how to recycle it. But then we purposely work with other companies who then take that and replace new materials in their existing objects and put them out. So like Rubber Made makes TerraCycle trash cans now. Instead of making their trash can out of new, virgin plastic, they now make it out of potato chip bag plastic. Or Hasboro makes Mr. Potato Head now. But instead of making it out of new plastic like they used to, they integrate in our waste material that we collect. Or Tiffany just recently did her team project with Timbuk2 who makes messenger bags but now, instead of making those messenger bags from new fabric, they’re making it from old post office bags and so on and so forth. So if we can get existing companies to shift what they do, that creates major change because it doesn’t go to the issue that you’re describing, that more shit on the market, and also removes the need of buying, of needing new materials to be taken out of the earth, which is really the number 1 environmental impact of making stuff, is the extraction of all this stuff out of the planet. So the way the [TerraCycle] model works and maybe the best way to look at it is take Colgate. So Colgate makes toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes, but none of them are recyclable anywhere in the world. You can’t recycle a toothpaste tube or a toothbrush, just because our system doesn’t handle that anywhere, whether it’s Australia or here. And so they fund us to be able to create a national platform where you can go to our website, TerraCycle.com, and sign up. We give you free shipping, and you can set up your office or your school to collect oral care waste of any brand and send it to us. So we create this platform of collection. That’s one of many ways we collect. So the waste comes in. That’s how people interact with us primarily. Then we take that waste. Our designers and our scientists look at ways how we can manipulate that waste into new things. Then we work with product companies who buy those raw materials, now not garbage but actual usable raw materials, from us and make their finished products. That’s the process. And then that finished product could be toothpaste tubes turned into, I don’t know, like, a fork. You may not even know it was made from an old toothpaste tube. It may just say, “Hey, recycled fork made with TerraCycle” or something. And that’s sold to Walmart or Target or wherever. And so that’s the way the platform works. And we’re out there all around the world now, trying to find more and more companies, more and more cities, more and more people, who are willing to fund the ability to recycle things that are non-recyclable. So we don’t have stores directly, and we even try not to create, you know, things, unless they’re replacing existing objects. On the TerraCycle work environment… TOM SZAKY: I don’t believe in a workplace that is an amusement park. We don’t have pool tables. We don’t overdo it, if you will, because some, especially, that’s sort of the quintessential if you think about it, the dot com office in the West Coast. You think, “Well, you go there to play.” And I want my employees to come, and let’s work. Let’s create real meaningful work, but then let’s create a culture that enables an idea to come from anywhere, because the good ideas don’t just come from the people with the biggest paychecks. They come from all corners. So examples and you have to mash all this together. So one is the idea that the office is completely open. There’s no walls. You can walk into my office without an appointment, and you can just yell ideas around. And it just creates a free flow of information. The entire all the offices are made entirely out of garbage so that you live the idea. Your desk is an old door. Your dividers are old vinyl records and so on and so forth. And then you we sprinkle on these other things that just reinforce the culture, such as Nerf gunning, or there’s yoga every day, five minute fitness. People are allowed to bring their pets to work. But why does it value to bring your pet to work? Because if you love your pet, then you’re going to feel better at work, and it’s going to make you more productive, better at what you do. Like a good example is we instituted free lunch. And it worked out really well because what I noticed is people were going out to have lunch, and then it turned into, like, an hour and a half lunch break. The moment we brought free lunch, what did people do? They took their plate back to their desk, and they worked even more. So you have to blend these two things together in the same aspect as in filming “Human Resources.” They’re people really want to be a part of it, so it’s a perk to be in it. It’s not something that people can say, “Oh, I spent time filming, so now I’m going to do less work because I’m here for 40 hours, and that’s all I do.” As an example, we have this summer, just in the U.S. office, 80 interns. And I think 500 people applied for these unpaid internships. They get free lunch, but other than that and 500 people applied for 80 positions. There’s this I think when you have a purposeful business, there’s a lot of people who want to take part in it. And when you create a culture like this, it even reinforces that. And that’s why it’s so neat to be where every aspect wins. One of the things I really loved about working with or love about working with Pivot is that what Pivot stands for and what TerraCycle stands for is really similar. I’ve never once been on a call discussing what an episode came out like and had a fundamental different point of view on it. And that’s really refreshing, because when I first I was worried about that. Honestly, when we first went into this project, I was like, “What’s going to happen when I see all the cuts and they’re pushing for one thing and we like it to go a different way?” And that’s never happened because it’s very aligned. And that is just incredibly fun. And when you get that, you double down on your productivity and your core sort of business issues, if you will.

Pivot, a cable channel geared toward Millennials, is launching Human Resources, a series shot in the faux-documentary style of “The Office.” It follows a fictional business called TerraCycle that’s working to repurpose all garbage. Some of the best jokes focus on the relaxed atmosphere of the Millennial workplace, where yoga sessions and workers’ dogs are the norm. It debuts Aug. 8 at 10 p.m.

A leading recycling company UF works with has gone Hollywood. UF’s Office of Sustainability has a partnership with TerraCycle, a recycling company that recycles waste that is usually non-recyclable, such as toothbrushes, wrappers and cosmetic containers. “We upcycle or recycle them into a variety of affordable, sustainable consumer products and building materials,” said Albe Zakes, global vice president of media relations. Donors drop off items at TerraCycle tubes located at all Gator Dining convenience stores on campus. The Office of Sustainability then sorts and mails the items to TerraCycle. Schools and nonprofits earn 2 cents for every piece of waste they recycle.Zakes said TerraCycle has made almost $10 million from recycling waste since 2007. But that number may change. The recycling company is scheduled to debut its own reality TV series called”Human Resources.” Each episode will be informative and feature a different product, but it will also be a bit of wackiness, Zakes said. He and his co-workers like to play pranks on each other and have fun around the office, he said. “We hope that that combination is going to make it both educational and entertaining at the same time,” he said. Human Resources will premiere Aug. 8 at 10 p.m. on Pivot, a new network geared towards “socially minded millennials,” he said. However, UF’s connection with the company will remain the same despite its potential stardom. TerraCycle is a starting point for people to become more involved in sustainability, said Joseph Floyd, zero waste coordinator for the Office of Sustainability. “It gives people an outlet and a way to engage,” he said. “There’s other value beyond the monetary factor.” Jessica Gervais, a 20-year-old UF biology and psychology sophomore, said TerraCycle options should be expanded from the current locations. “I think it might be an even better idea to have it all around campus instead of just the P.O.D.,” Gervais said. “Unless you’re there a lot, it’s probably really inconvenient to go all the way there to get rid of a toothbrush.” However, Gervais said she still will start using the P.O.D. Market locations because the planet is more important than a minor inconvenience.

Recycle Across America® (RAA, recycleacrossamerica.org) has joined forces with Participant Media to launch a social action campaign focused on transforming recycling and improving the economics and prevalence of sustainable packaging and manufacturing. The campaign, unveiled today at the European Union’s Environmental Summit by RAA’s founder Mitch Hedlund, is inspired by Participant’s new show “Human Resources,” premiering August 8 on its television network Pivot. “Human Resources” follows the non-stop, deadline-driven world of TerraCycle®, a company whose mission is to eliminate waste on a global scale. The Recycle Right! campaign offers informational videos, tips and practical solutions – such as standardized recycling labels – to help everyone recycle right and increase the amount of quality raw recycled materials available to be used by manufacturers looking to lessen their environmental footprint. “We can’t sit idle knowing that millions of tons of valuable recyclable materials, which are easy to convert into new products and packaging, are going to waste every year.  Which one of us wants to throw billions of dollars and our environmental wellbeing into landfills?  That’s what we’re doing if we’re not recycling right,” says Tom Szaky, CEO TerraCycle.  “We’re thrilled to join forces with Participant Media and Recycle Across America to fix the dysfunction of recycling and move the needle toward progress.  And we can’t wait for audiences to watch ‘Human Resources’ to see inside our world at TerraCycle where every day we’re proving that even the most undesirable and traditionally non-recyclable materials can have a new purpose and can be valuable.” Historically there have been thousands of different looking labels on public area recycling bins causing confusion and resulting in tons of garbage being thrown in recycling bins each day.  A key component of the campaign is expanding the use of standardized recycling labels to help eliminate confusion at the bins and empowering everyone to recycle right. The campaign aims to double the amount of standardized labels being used by the end of the year to one million. Use of the standardized labels on recycling bins have shown to:

• Increase recycling levels by more than 50 percent and significantly reduces the amount of trash thrown in recycling bins.
• Help ensure a consistent quality and quantity of recycled materials. This helps keep the cost of recycled raw materials competitive with virgin materials.

“We are incredibly excited to work with two of the most predominant leaders of change in their industries, Participant Media and TerraCycle!  Worldwide waste is expected to double by 2025 and with the U.S. being the largest producer of waste in the world, it is imperative that we address this issue today,” RAA executive director, Mitch Hedlund explains. “We need to remind ourselves that it’s not just waste that’s doubling; it’s the use of finite natural resources and generation of excessive CO2 that will also double.  This is why we're thrilled to work with these companies to advance the use of the standardized labels.  It's a deceivingly simple solution that creates exponential progress - and I think we're all ready for some progress!" Chad Boettcher, EVP of Social Action and Advocacy at Participant Media says:  “We know that recycling is the most important action we can do to improve the environment yet the percentage of valuable materials being recycled has not improved much over the past 17 years,” Boettcher continues, “We are eager to work with Recycle Across America and TerraCycle to spread awareness on such a tangible and easy step we can all take in improving the health of our world environmentally and economically.” Many industry leaders have already begun using the labels on their bins, such as: NBCUniversal, Hallmark, Kohler, Walt Disney World employee areas, Procter & Gamble manufacturing, SanDisk, AOL, two thousand U.S. K-12 schools – including all the public schools in Washington DC, many universities including University of Denver, George Mason University, Johns Hopkins University, and thousands of other adopters. Today approximately half a million of RAA’s standardized labels are in use throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe.  The RAA and Participant Media through Recycle Right! will continue this effort.

Recycling should feel good and most importantly, be easy. Reducing waste, saving energy, helping the planet—these are all things that most of us want to do—whether we are packaging engineers or just plain old consumers—but struggle to when the process is difficult or unclear! But in a system full of complicated rules and tiny numbers in often hard to find triangles, recycling often turns into a frustrating process, ending in a blind toss into what we hope is the right bin. Even as packaging experts we are sometimes unsure of which bin, is the right bin! To help break down these barriers, not-for-profit Recycle Across America (RAA) distributes standardized recycling-bin labels, designed to reduce public confusion about how to recycle. The labels clearly point out what can be placed in a bin, from plastic only to mixed recycling to compostables and yes, even the dreaded landfill. Using simple clear imagery and minimal copy these labels could be understood by someone who doesn’t even speak our language! TerraCycle has partnered with RAA for the launch of their Recycle Right! social action campaign, which features advertisements, videos, and tips on recycling in hopes of doubling the amount of standardized labels in use to 1 million labels deployed on bins nationwide. The campaign is kicking off in conjunction with the premiere of “Human Resources”, a new show about the world of TerraCycle fromParticipant Media. Consumers are the first step in the recycling process, so clarity about how to get things started is important. When people don’t know what can be recycled or where to put it, waste streams often end up polluted with trash or intermingled recyclables. Costs increase and time is wasted as processors are forced to sort through waste for the materials they can use. This discourages sustainable practices; if the cost of recycling is greater than the value of the materials, it just won’t happen. Meanwhile, daunting rules lead many consumers to throw up their hands and just throw everything in the garbage. According to the EPA, Americans recycled only 38% of aluminum packaging and 34% of glass packaging in 2012. As a result, landfills are filling up with material that won’t break down for decades and that could have easily been recovered and reused. Confusion is also burdening businesses, organizations and schools who want to reduce waste and recycle. Green consultants or sustainability administrators end up spending much of their time trying to increase effectiveness of recycling programs and decrease waste-hauling costs. Clearer labeling on bins would simplify recycling for everyone and allow these groups to focus on broader sustainability initiatives. Some big-name adopters of RAA’s labels include NBCUniversal, Procter and Gamble manufacturing and Hallmark. Additionally, over 2,000 K-12 schools in the US have taken them on. The results? According to RAA, standardized recycling labels help increase recycling more than 50% and significantly decrease the amount of trash or incorrect recyclable thrown into recycling bins and polluting that once valuable material. Implementing bin labels in the office is a first step anyone can take to improve company recycling practices. But packagers could potentially play a larger role in organizing the chaos of the recycling system. Right now, a lack of consistent labeling or clear directions makes it difficult to determine what to do with certain waste; food containers, different types of paper and the range of numbered plastics all lead to puzzled customers. Some efforts have been made to demystify that little green triangle. The On-Pack Recycling Label launched in the UK in 2009, aiming to provide clearer instructions and keep trash out of recycling streams. The labels, which have been adopted by about 150 brands, indicate whether each part of a package is recycled widely, only in certain areas or not at all. A similar effort by the How2Recycle project has been offered to US businesses since 2012. And customer surveys have shown that 80% of customers who saw the How2Recycle label on a package gained a more positive impression of that company. Figuring out where to toss our trash shouldn’t be stressful. People want to reduce their impact on the planet, and when a company makes it easy for their customers to go green, everybody comes out happier. Processors win, consumers win, the planet wins and the price of recycled materials goes down meaning packaging designers and engineers can finally convince the other stakeholders at going to post-consumer waste packaging makes sense! Author Tom Szaky, founder/CEO of TerraCycle, has won more than 50 awards for entrepreneurship, also writes blogs for Treehugger and The New York Times, recently published a book called "Revolution in a Bottle" and is the star of a National Geographic Channel special, "Garbage Moguls."

Pivot TV’s new reality show about converting waste materials into new better quality stuff, is changing the definition of trash TV. The new half hour comedy show, “Human Resources,” premiers August 8. It’s based on the eccentric staff at New Jersey upcycling company Terra Cycle. The world of reality TV has few, if any, boundaries. The era of weird people’s life on camera has included such Emmy worthy programs as “Vanilla Ice Goes Amish” and “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” And then there was the ever twisted reality show “The Swan,” which took women deemed “unattractive” and gave them extreme plastic surgery-laden makeovers. But that’s not quite the flow for “Human Resources.” According to Terra Cycle CEO Tom Szaky, it’s all about eliminating the concept of waste by making things that were formerly unrecyclable, recyclable. They reuse, upcycle, and even recycle nearly everything that you could imagine. It’s a nutty crew in a nutty workspace with daily lunch yoga, rain dances on the front lawn, superhero sock day, and vegan lunches. But most importantly, the show is shining a light on a really cool company whose mission is to create waste collection programs called Brigades for things that are traditionally difficult to recycle. The waste is transformed into brand new products from recycled park benches to upcycledbackpacks. Terra Cycle is trying to fix a big problem, considering that 90 percent of the stuff we buy will be in the dump within the year. But by changing our perspective, nothing needs to be trash because one system’s trash is another system’s food–just like in nature. Either way, it’s certainly an upgrade from “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé”, “I Cloned My Pet”, or “Living Lohan.”

By combining our strengths, TerraCycle, RAA and Pivot TV will bring more awareness to reshaping recycling and bettering the environment. Although this is only one partnership hoping to better the environment, it is still better than no initiative at all. After all, it takes a planet to save a planet, and you always have to start somewhere.