We recently moved into our newly redesigned offices and in the process managed to strike an interesting balance. Our goal was to embrace our growth from a basement start-up to a proper business with real revenue and an employee manual while still preserving what we think is special about our culture: excitement and out-of-the-box thinking. Here’s what we did. In the beginning, TerraCycle had a funky office environment because that was all we could afford. The walls were always painted in various bright colors — typically with rejected color mixes from local paint stores — and they were always covered with various art pieces we could find free, such as paintings from the local high school art department and various objects people thought fit to throw out. I was inspired to create such a space by Jim Budman, founder of Budman Studio. The concept behind Jim’s vision is to facilitate art and create an ever-changing and highly stimulating environment for creative thought. When I went to Princeton, I started spending weekends at his SoHo studio to escape our Milwaukee’s Best-drenched parties (this New York Times article from 2001 captures what those weekends were like.)

Atlanta (CNN) -- They say one man's trash is another man's treasure and for Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, that couldn't be more true. His New Jersey-based company is helping millions of people wise-up to waste recycling. But is was a wacky idea that got 29-year-old Szaky started. "My friends and I were trying to grow some plants and realized worm poop was one of the best fertilizers to feed them," Szaky said, "...and that suddenly started getting me to thinking differently about waste."

Broward College was recently selected as one of four finalists in a nationwide contest sponsored by TerraCycle. The contest challenged TerraCycle participants to design a TerraCycle waste collection station using discarded "upcycled" waste. Broward College students came up with the idea of creating a bin out of VHS tapes. BC's bin was selected as one of the 10 finalist. Now, the public will vote on a winner over the next couple weeks, ending October 27th. Please vote so Broward College can be named the Grand Prize Winner. All proceeds will help benefit the Michelle Lawless Environmental Science Scholarship Fund.

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Bethel Middle School in the Bryant (AK) School District outside of Little Rock takes soaring celings to the max, and keeps the building cool and airy. (Jackson Brown King Architects) The Bryant School District west of Little Rock, Arkansas, planted a green school, Bryant Middle School (above and below) and grew a corps of green-minded young people. The school’s green team attracted about 90 kids and they’ve made Bryant MS into a hub of recycling. Because the town does not offer curbside pick up, the 6th-8th graders undertook to provide it themselves. Each week they set up a drop off for paper, aluminum and plastic bottles outside their school, which they sort and send to a local recycler. Inside, they’re also manic about recycling, collecting snack wrappers, ink jet cartridges and other recyclables for TerraCycle, which pays them back a small sum. They also collected soda can pull tabs, which the Future Business Leaders of America collect for Ronald McDonald Houses.

When TerraCycle first launched its products in major stores across the nation, the upcycled backpacks, lunchboxes and pencil cases were welcomed by parents and students alike as the perfect "Go green!" options for school year necessities. The fact that these products are all made out of recycled materials that have been donated to the company through TerraCycle's "recycling brigade" programs (common at many schools across the nation) only further adds to their appeal. In fact, with the expansion of the brigade program to include old computer accessory parts (such as computer mice), the brigades could easily see more popularity this year than ever before. However, perhaps even a more exciting addition to the TerraCycle line of recycling-related materials is their launch of the first ever upcycling-focused Facebook game. Trash Tycoon was launched by TerraCycle as part of a new way to raise both money and awareness for environmental nonprofit CarbonFund.org. In the game, participants work to build up the green factor of towns that they are in charge of. Their actions can include collecting the waste that is strewn throughout the entire town, as well as completing various recycling-related missions throughout the entire game. While playing the game, participants earn in-game money. CarbonFund.org then benefits from these in-game profits, as 10 percent of all in-game earnings are donated through TerraCycle to CarbonFund in real-life cash.

Help save the earth a little at a time. Here's a really easy and fun way to do just that. Old Navy stores are taking your old flip-flops and giving them to TerraCycle, who in turn recycles them into Playground sets. Here's a video about what TerraCycle does and how they re-use everyday garbage. I was just thinking about purging my old worn out ones from the summer but haven't gotten around to ditching them yet. Good thing I didn't. Now I can put them to better use!

Not only are Wisps incredibly convenient to carry around, they're also pleasant to use. The brush is gentle, but helps to make your teeth feel cleaner. The pick won't hurt when you use it, but it will get bits of food dislodged from between your teeth. And the breath-freshening beads have a pleasant taste. Spearmint is a less intense mint than Peppermint is, but both taste good, while Icy Bubble is a minty bubble gum flavor (not sugary like a kid's bubble gum-flavored product, though). Each flavor leaves a lasting freshness in your mouth for about the next 30-60 minutes. Colgate Wisps are not only good for you, but they're also eco-friendly--they've partnered with TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.com> to recycle used Wisps and turn them into cool products like garden stones.

We go through A LOT of juice pouch drinks during the summer and during sports seasons. I have a box sitting on the counter that the empty juice pouches go into; when we have filled the box, we will send them off to Terra Cycle, a company dedicated to finding ways to reuse waste materials so that it does not end up in a landfill. Terra Cycle will pay people for their trash! Visit their website www.terracycle.net for more information on what types of waste they are paying consumers to collect and send to them.

VOTES NEEDED — The Olmsted Falls Middle School is a finalist in a nationwide contest in designing a TerraCycle waste collection station. Teacher Mike Schafer’s  Green Team designed one resembling the Cleveland Rock ‘n Roll Museum and Hall of Fame building. The online voting will determine the winner. But the deadline is Oct. 24. The winner will be announced Oct. 27. Go to http://www.terracycle.net/the-box-that-rocks-design-contest and select Olmsted Falls.