Starting April 22 and running through May 21, shoppers at Old Navy stores can deposit their used flip flops in collection bins found inside any Old Navy store. TerraCycle, an international upcycling and recycling company, will then recycle the flip-flops into playgrounds which will be donated to communities around the country.
For Dylan Balcom, saving the planet is important enough to get involved in the most hands-on – and entrepreneurial – way he can.
“Not every 13-year-old boy drops off a box of trash to a UPS store,” the Charlestown teen admits with a wry grin.
He’s started a program at his school to collect non-recyclable trash he sends to TerraCycle, a company based in New Jersey that donates 2 cents to Charlestown Middle School’s student council for each piece of waste.
The company uses the trash as the base materials of different products. Dylan has an impressive collection of these “upcycled” goods, which include lunch boxes and school supplies and often bear the logo of the snack company that produced the original, discarded packaging.
Dylan’s sister Alexis Balcom, 18, remembers discovering the program last year, the summer before Dylan started 6th grade.
“Mom and I were going back-to-school shopping and we found these folders that were made out of Lay’s (potato) chip bags,” she said. “I remember thinking it was perfect for Dylan because he was so interested in recycling and the environment.”
The folder had the company’s contact details on the back. “We spent that entire night surfing the website and setting up the account, and I just remember that he was really excited,” Alexis said.
Like any serious presidential hopeful, Albert James is already working on his campaign platform.
Never mind that he can’t actually run until 2036.
While he waits, Albert, a fourth grader at Park Lodge Elementary School, is busy coordinating his school’s TerraCycle program, a brigade to recycle products that are used in every home. He got the idea last fall from an advertisement on the back of a Capri Sun box.
Intrigued by the prospect of raising money for his school, Albert set off on a mission.
“He came to me and said ‘Mrs. Parrish, I really want to help the environment and help our school be better recyclers,’ ” said his teacher, Cathy Parrish.
In my first blog post about Terracycle I discovered that there are a few different ways to recycle, and that companies are beginning to work together to keep certain types of packaging out of the landfill. In this post, I’m going to talk about some of the products Terracycle is creating as a result of these partnerships.
So what can you do with a candy wrapper; other than use it as a temporary spoon rest at your desk during lunch? If a little bit of kitsch and pop culture is your thing then a mini messenger bag made out of Starburst wrappers can be yours!
Honestly, there are a slew of products available in the Terracycle line, so to link to all of them would just be an indication of my burgeoning insanity. But here’s what stood out to me the most:
Recycling bins made out of recycled plastic: Is there truly a better reincarnation of plastics?
BLOOMINGTON – Local locations of Office Depot and Old Navy are accepting used pens and flip-flops, respectively, during a nationwide recycling program.
Between April 17 and 23, shoppers can bring 10 used pens, markers or mechanical pencils to Office Depot and receive a coupon towards new Sanford products. The used instruments will be sent to TerraCycle to be recycled into new office products.
From April 22 through May 21, shoppers can deposit used flip flops in bins inside any Old Navy store. TerraCycle will recycle the flip-flops into playground materials.
To help, one company is offering consumers a way to reduce their household garbage while earning money for local schools or charities. Through free collection programs called Brigades, upcycling pioneer TerraCycle is collecting and paying for packaging waste from household staples- from the bathroom to the kitchen to the classroom.
Many major brands are getting on board with upcycling. Scott Tissue and Huggies are sponsoring programs to collect plastic packaging waste from paper products and diapers. And since most oral hygiene products aren't recyclable, Colgate and TerraCycle have partnered to collect used toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.
Pack It Up
The #1 best way that you can green your lunch is to pack it. Instead of using plastic or paper bags, you should choose a reusable lunch box. Why? According to the EPA, children who bring a bag lunch to school every day create about 67 pounds of waste by the end of the year! If you can imagine how many children are in school and how many people work every day, that’s millions of pounds of brown bag waste.
Here are a few reusable lunch boxes that are great alternatives to bags:
TerraCycle Drink Pouch Lunch Box,
ACME Cotton Recycled Lunch Bag,
Vy & Elle Lunch Bag,
Mini Bento Stainless Steel Lunch Jar.
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.
