Packaging science is vital to recycling and upcycling, and protecting the environment from our waste and overuse of natural resources. We both now how important packaging is, the question is how to keep it evolving. TerraCycle is out to reach people of all ages — not just those interested in packaging — and that means reaching kids as well and raising their interest in the importance of packaging. This is where our latest venture, Trash Tycoon, comes in to the picture. Trash Tycoon is the brain-child of the Social Game start-up GuerillApps, who designed the cutting edge game with TerraCycle’s real life upcycling and recycling programs in mind. Through the game, and in the privacy our their own homes, kids (and parents) can learn about how TerraCycle’s Brigade programs work, and what happens to trash after it’s collected and sent to TerraCycle.

Do you like Facebook games? I used to be a Farmville junkie but stopped playing and then I heard about the TerraCycle game! I was so excited, now I love the game and the company!

This year, bringing green into the fall and winter is easy. While packing lunches as kids head back to school, options for staying eco-friendly and keeping lunch tasty are at your fingertips. TerraCycle, a pioneering recycling and upcycling company, offers eco-friendly, upcycled and recycled lunchboxes as well as a way to earn money by collecting non-recyclable food packaging such as cookies, chips, and juice pouches.

This year, bringing green into the fall and winter is easy. While packing lunches as kids head back to school, options for staying eco-friendly and keeping lunch tasty are at your fingertips. TerraCycle, a pioneering recycling and upcycling company, offers eco-friendly, upcycled and recycled lunchboxes as well as a way to earn money by collecting non-recyclable food packaging such as cookies, chips, and juice pouches. Once they're done, students can make their own environmental efforts by joining a Brigade, collecting their wrappers and sending them in to TerraCycle to earn money for their school. In addition to the lunchboxes mentioned above, TerraCycle turns the wrappers into eco-friendly backpacks, pencils and notebooks for students to enjoy.

Do you like Facebook games? I used to be a Farmville junkie but stopped playing and then I heard about the TerraCycle game! I was so excited, now I love the game and the company!

The Guerillapps team quickly realized that in order to maintain Trash Tycoon’s fun, social landscape but ultimately change consumers’ environmental outlook, they would have to take the game outside of the virtual and into the real world. The first step? Teaming up with some of the biggest players in the green space. Guerillapps quickly acquired sponsorship from upcycling company TerraCycle and carbon offset provider Carbonfund.org to further opportunities for real world impact. Trash Tycoon’s garbage-tackling premise directly mirrors the real-world goals of TerraCycle, a collection and solution program for typically non-recyclable waste. TerraCycle’s sponsorship also provides players the opportunity to earn game points by engaging in sustainable, real-world practices outside of the game. By simply buying TerraCycle’s green products online, players can redeem game points. Through Carbonfund.org’s contribution, players can also vote for their favorite carbon offset project within the game. Guerillapps then donates 10% of this revenue to the chosen project to help fight climate change.

"Be flexible in your business model but not in your ideals, and harbor determination." Szaky founded TerraCycle when he was just a 19-year-old Princeton freshman. The company made worm refuse into fertilizer and packaged it in recycled bottles. Now, TerraCycle has completely altered its focus, after Szaky saw an opportunity and went for it. TerraCycle's main business is now in 'upcycling' -- the repurposing of used material -- and things are going better than ever.

A new social game for Facebook is putting the fun into cleaning up trash and recycling. The green themed social game challenges players to find and recycle trash that can be turned into new products. The ‘Trash Tycoon’ game was released by Terracycle and resembles the company’s business model. Terracycle collects post-consumer waste like drink pouches and chip bags and upcycles them into new products including bags, placemats and frames. In the ‘Trash Tycoon’ game, players collect and recycle trash like glass, plastic and paper that can be turned into eco-friendly products. Players earn game money and points for the amount of waste that they upcycle into products.

As the online community dives into game play with Trash Tycoon via Facebook, they take on the role of recycling entrepreneurs by collecting litter in a trash-strewn city and upcycling waste into higher-quality, environmentally friendly products. Upcycling, a process in which discarded waste is repurposed for use, can range from building a house of abandoned material to finding innovative uses for discarded plastic bags. After completing missions, users collect money and earn points to ultimately earn the title of garbage tycoons. The game's trash-tackling premise directly mirrors that of its sponsor, TerraCycle. "Something as simple as a social game where players earn points for recycling in the real world is capable of changing people's behavior for the better," says Raviv Turner, co-founder and CEO of Guerillapps. "We've organically integrated real-world recycling goals into the game to ensure that players have fun and see Trash Tycoon first and foremost as a game, while at the same time presenting a proactive approach for more mindful actions as users approach real-life situations with acquired knowledge from Trash Tycoon."

VentureBeat has highlighted yet another new Facebook game title called Trash Tycoon from Guerillapps . The game seeks to teach the concepts of “upcycling” as users clean up trash around a virtual community and try to transform it into a bustling and successful town. The app is sponsored by recycling company TerraCycle .