Method, creator of nontoxic, biodegradable homecare products, has partnered with TerraCycle to keep its foaming hand wash, dish soap and laundry detergent refill pouches out of the landfills.

Method, creator of nontoxic, biodegradable homecare products, has partnered with TerraCycle to keep its foaming hand wash, dish soap and laundry detergent refill pouches out of the landfills.

Drink pouches are a popular addition to lunches and can be found in almost every cafeteria and classroom in Canada. Unfortunately these items cannot be recycled through traditional recycling programs. As of this week, Drink Pouch Brigades across Canada have helped collect more than one million pouches and TerraCycle has contributed over $20,000 to schools and non-profits! Across Canada over 2,700 schools, non-profits and community groups have joined together to help collect the one million pieces. Exactly how much is one million drink pouches? It is enough to cover nine hockey rinks or 33 basketball courts. Students, teachers and community members from almost 3,000 communities across Canada are working together to assure this packaging is no longer waste and can be given new life by TerraCycle. "It gives the students a chance to participate and see results for their actions. We can collect waste and get paid for it," says Sandra Ross, parent volunteer at William S. Patterson P.S. in Clandeboye, Manitoba.

TerraCycle Canada Inc.'s GM Luisa Girotto and communications manager Laurent Cassar (in back) to mark one-million drink pouches donated by Canadians to the North York-based company. Students diverted more than 3,000 drink pouches from landfill and donated them to TerraCycle, which "upcycles" non-recyclable materials into 200 new products.    Staff Photo/TAMARA SHEPHARD Most kids toss their non-recyclable drink pouches in the trash. Dixon Grove Junior Middle School students donate their drink pouches by the thousands to TerraCycle, a North York-based company that repurposes them into fashion bags, tote bags, lunch bags and pencil cases. TerraCycle gives the Etobicoke elementary school $0.02 per pouch, proceeds of which will send students to the Humber Arboretum and the Don Valley Brickworks before the end of the school year.

Toronto-native Tom Szaky (pronounced Zack-ee) has been spinning trash into gold since 2002, when he founded Terracycle with a friend out of his Princeton University dorm room. It started with selling worm food in used pop bottles, but soon transformed into turning waste into backpacks, picture frames, binders, pencil cases and more. All of these products branded with the logos of the same companies that produced the waste to make them. Would you buy a backpack made from stitched together Capri Sun pouches, or a three-ring binder composed of M&M wrappers? This is all stuff that can't be recycled, but with Terracycle's innovative "upcycle" technique Szaky is able to have waste producing companies foot the bill for garbage collection, while partnering with other expert product manufacturers who substitute their normal building materials with Terracycle's scientifically manipulated garbage. To learn how he does it, check out part one of our interview. Read on to get inside Szaky's own entrepreneurial DNA and learn how he turned his most devastating failures into his greatest successes. What made you believe you could actually make quality products out of garbage? You just do it. You just try. You take a leap of faith. You say, "I'm not going to discuss it anymore, I'm not going to theorize over it, I'm not going to do an academic paper on it, I'm going to simply do it. Then what happens is you start doing it and then you start screwing up. In the process of screwing up you realize what you need to do differently to make it successful. That has basically been the guiding principle of Terracycle ever since we began: Just try and then learn from the mistakes. We've had more mistakes than we've had successes, but then you focus and grow the successes and that's how you have a successful business.

Those who think they're pretty masterful recyclers have obviously never met Tom Szaky. (pronounced Zack-ee) He is the 27-year-old Hungarian-Canadian founder and CEO ofTerracycle, a company founded in 2001 that collects non-recyclable garbage and turns them into usable, branded merchandise like backpacks, boom boxes and laptop bags. Not only does it help the environment and charity -- over 1 million units of garbage have been collected and over $2 million have been donated -- but it also provides companies like Kraft and Colgate-Palmolive an eco-friendly solution to the tons of waste produced by their brands.

Canada Newswire -- - Walmart Canada and many of Canada's largest corporations today announced the results of initiatives promised one year ago at the Walmart Green Business Summit. The updates are  vailable on www.ShareGreen.ca. Walmart Canada posed the Sustainability Challenge to prominent Canadian companies at the Walmart Green Business Summit on February 10, 2010. The companies signed the following commitment: "My organization will launch a major sustainability project over the next year in Canada focused on waste, energy, water or sustainable products or services." Highlights of the earth-saving projects include a new, lighter package for Heinz, makers of Renees Gourmet dressings, which reduced Green House Gas (GHG) emissions during transportation. The switch contributed to the company's reduction in GHG emissions by more than 16.2 percent in 2010. Kraft Foods partnered with Terra-Cycle to sponsor the "up-cycling" of its snack food packaging into retail items such as tote bags, shower curtains and umbrellas. Kraft Foods diverted more than 590,000 packages from landfills through this program. "These results show that Canadian companies can make significant and tangible differences by adopting greener business practices," said David Cheesewright, president and CEO of Walmart Canada. "They also show companies can cut costs and create new revenue streams while doing it. We applaud the companies that took on this challenge because their commitment impacts millions of Canadians." Signatories to the Sustainability Challenge are: 3M Canada                    Kraft Canada Inc. Bissell Inc.                 Kruger Products L.P. Canadian Tire Corporation    Maple Leaf Foods Coca-Cola Canada             McDonalds Canada Frito-Lay Canada             Naya Water Greenomics Corporation       Nature's Path Foods Hallmark Canada              Nature's Grilling Products Hewlett-Packard (Canada)     Projecting Change Film Festival H.J. Heinz Company           Richelieu The Home Depot Canada        SC Johnson and Sons Staples Canada Inc           Unilever Canada Inc Spin Master Inc              Walmart Canada SOURCE: ShareGreen.ca, Walmart Canada

This school in Souris was the first Manitoba school to join TerraCycle's Brigades and has been tops in collecting drink pouches this year.

Students at Barkers Point Elementary School in Fredericton are helping turn trash into treasures.

Imagine, que com sua ajuda, aquela embalagem que você recolheu e enviou para a reciclagem sem nenhum custo deixará de poluir um aterro, irá gerar renda para pessoas carentes e ainda poderá ser readquirida em grandes redes varejistas com uma nova função através de produtos descolados e modernos.