The Keynote speaker was TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky. We were also asked to sit at his table. Long story short, we chatted the whole dinner, awesome dude. Extremely intelligent, insightful, and funny guy. If you aren’t familiar with TerraCycle, please look it up here. I HIGHLY recommend reading the story of how Tom started the company AND what they do now. Extremely motivating.

Babies are cute. Their diapers are not, for several reasons, many of which involve the environment. Whenever I'm visiting my sister, who has a 2-year-old and a newborn, I'm struck with the sheer volume of dirty diapers in the trash bin. Where does all that gross stuff go? According to this article on Owatonna.com, "dirty diapers comprise only about one and one-half percent of all materials buried in landfills." To me that just means there's a whole lot of crap buried in landfills. The article is about TerraCycle's ideas for recycling disposable diapers in the near future. That sounds like a good idea, but when I read, "Most of the used diapers will eventually be turned into plastic products...," it kind of grosses me out. Sterilization is apparently going to be part of the recycling process, but I still hope the plastic products in question don't end up being plates and water bottles. Eew. Anyway, if you care about the planet and have asked yourself the same question I have about the eventual resting place for dirty diapers, the article is worth reading. Check it out here.

Mars Area The first day of school for students will be Aug. 27 under a calendar adopted Tuesday by school directors. The last day depends on the number of snow days. If no snow days are used, school will end May 29. If all five snow days are needed, school will end June 4. The calendar also includes five prescheduled, two-hour delays for staff development Sept. 28, Nov. 1, Feb. 4, March 20 and April 18. • The board approved a revision to its policy governing background checks for employees. It now requires coaches who are not district employees, including volunteers, to submit to the same background checks as employees. The policy will take effect July 1. • A contract with Pediatric Nursing Association Services will provide a nurse at the elementary school for two hours a day. The district is having a hard time filling a vacancy in the department, said Jill Swaney, business manager. • The elementary schools are raising money for school programs and activities through the TerraCycle recycling program. The Primary Center, Mars Elementary School and Centennial School are collecting recyclable juice bags and plastic lunch bags and containers. As part of the program, students in grades 1-6 are placing used juice bags and plastic lunch bags and containers into receptacles in their cafeterias. TerraCycle, which converts waste into other products and materials, will donate two cents for each item collected. Information: sala@zoominternet.net or www.terracycle.net .

Bryan Dooley, Staff Writer February 16, 2012 Reduce, reuse, Recyclemania. Recyclemania is an annual contest which lasts from February through March. Over 400 colleges and universities nationwide — including Guilford — will compete to see which one recycles the most waste. “We're submitting results of measured landfill waste,” said David Petree, director of environmental sustainability, via email. “Food waste and electronic waste. Each of these categories are measured by weight and the results are posted weekly on the Recyclemania web page.”

In this webinar, you will hear about TerraCycle's unique approach to product development and how they collaborate with a number of brands including P&G, Capri-Sun, Target, and Frito-Lay.  Through these partnerships, TerraCycle helps brands create a full range of products for home, school, the office, the garden, and even for pets!  These programs not only help to eliminate waste, but also enable unique and effective marketing and communication strategies.  Hear more about TerraCycle's story, one of the highest rated sessions shared at the 2011 ANA Masters of Marketing Annual Conference and walk away with a new perspective on innovation.

In Hackettstown, the company’s efforts to sustainability and green manufacturing are impressive. First, virtually all waste generated by the 200,000-sq.-ft facility winds up being reused, recycled or redistributed, asserts Brian Suwalski, plant director. Any confectionery waste that’s not possible of being reworked back into processing is sold as animal feed, typically to hog farmers as “pig food.” Packaging that’s slated for waste or surplus is also recycled. Useable printed packaging is shipped to Terracycle, which takes the material and produces a range of tote bags, pencil boxes and other consumer goods, a form of recycling known as “upcycling.” The plant’s waste water treatment plant not only cleans the water before returning it back to the city’s sewage system, it also feeds the sludge through an anaerobic digester and then a sludge press to create sludge cakes, which can be used as agricultural fertilizer

Happy Valentine's Day and TerraCycle Tuesday! Today we're looking at one of our most popular brigades, the Drink Pouch Brigade. What can be TerraCycled in this category? Answer: any brand aluminum drink pouches and plastic drink pouches What CANNOT be TerraCycled in this category? Answer: juice boxes What does this waste get used for? Check out the neat video below to find out what happens to your juice pouches!

Let’s face it. We’re not all cloth-diapering mamas. For many of us disposable diapers are the practical choice. But just because you use disposables, doesn’t mean you don’t consider your impact on the environment and try to make greener changes in other ways. But now a partnership with Huggies and TerraCycle–a recycling powerhouse company that thrives on waste, we can do a little bit more to offset those diapers that end up being tossed into landfills. TerraCycle is known for taking things like CapriSun wrappers, Doritos bags, or circuit boards and turning them into reusable products like grocery totes, clocks and outdoor fencing. But as part of a program with Huggies, called the Huggies Brigade, they are collecting the plastic packaging from Huggies Diaper bags and recycling it into other products. This keeps it out of the landfill and re-worked into another purpose.

Nowadays, there are so many awesome ways to take ordinary items around your home and repurpose them into something brand new. As a society, we often waste so much adding to our ever increasing landfills. If you have been thinking of ways to go green, but don't know where to start, we have a few projects for you. TerraCycle is a company that dedicates itself to eliminating waste. Establishing recycling systems around the country, TerraCycle works to create new products from donated and collected waste (sounds interesting right?).