Recycling machines and reverse vending machines are still fairly new -- recently I wrote about a couple of cool ones <http://news.discovery.com/tech/recycling-machines-give-back-to-greenies.html>  arriving at college campuses and other locations around the country. Unlike those, however, the "Store Collection Systems" at Wal-Mart are made by TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/> , which runs national waste materials collection programs for schools and nonprofits. The company makes eco-friendly products, including bags, coolers, and kites from materials like discarded energy bar wrappers and yogurt cups. I'm definitely a TerraCycle fan, first hearing about it back in 2007 when a colleague of mine at a short-lived online magazine interviewed founder Tom Skazy. The magazine is gone, but I still have an electronic copy of the Q&A.

Princeton entrepreneur wants to rid the globe of most of its trash The heart of Princeton resident Tom Szaky’s $20-million-a-year business empire is an old printing plant at 121 New York Ave. in Trenton, where most of the company’s 75 employees work, at desks made of old doors, with a computer network cobbled together from other companies’ obsolete hardware, with dividers made of old vinyl hip-hop records and empty soda bottles, and in some cases walking on floor tiles made of processed plastic and aluminum juice pouches.

Gruma Corporation with its Guerrero brand, one of the biggest tortillas and tostadas producers in the United States, has created a partnership with TerraCycle, Inc. to collect and reuse tortillas and tostadas plastic packaging through The Brigade of Tortillas and Tostadas program. This is the first time that a tortillas and tostadas brand, focused in the United States Hispanic market, has developed this kind of campaign.

Elementary school joins nationwide recycling effort MAHOPAC: After seeing a lot of discarded Capri Sun pouches, teachers at Fulmar Road Elementary School signed up to recycle them through a company called TerraCycle. The school earns two cents per pouch. The move is part of a nationwide effort that has just reached the milestone of keeping 50 million pouches out of landfills.

Students at Northern Elementary School, St. Philip’s School and Bemidji Area Schools’ Kids and Company/SummerKids program are collecting items like drink pouches, candy wrappers, chip bags, plastic baggies and plastic containers and earning their schools 2 cents for each piece of waste they send to TerraCycle, a company that makes eco-friendly products from packaging waste.

A set of New Jersey Wal-Mart parking lots now have a way to turn consumer product waste into profits. (Well, a little pocket change, anyway.)  Terracycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  has installed what they call "Store Collection Systems," a 20-foot trailer that accepts all kinds of packaging that can't be recycled in the normal blue bin outside your house. Then they take the mostly plastic waste—like Elmer’s glue bottles, toothpaste tubes, Capri Sun drink pouches—and turn them into products to resell in stores and online. They make mostly bags, pouches and coolers, but a few other items like picture frames and fertilizer, too.

Like many others, we already loved TerraCycle before reviewing Tom Szaky’s book, Revolution in a Bottle—How TerraCycle Is Redefining Green Business. Szaky’s little book is incredibly readable and takes you through the ups and downs (there were lots of downs). Starting with his freshman year at Princeton and his decision to drop-out, Szaky takes us with him through every agonizing detail of the struggle to start the company and keep it afloat.  Think garbage bins filled with maggots, overflowing swimming pools filled with worm poop “tea”, etc… This could have been subtitled: The Little Green Company That Could.

The teachers at Delshire Elementary School in Delhi used to see a lot of Capri Sun drink pouches get thrown away. Once they signed up to recycle them through a company called TerraCycle, the school began earning two cents for every one of those pouches and became part of a nationwide effort that has just reached an impressive milestone of keeping 50 million pouches out of landfills. In addition, TerraCycle, which makes affordable, eco-friendly products from packaging waste, and Capri Sun have paid one million dollars to schools and non-profits in return for the recycled drink pouches.

Beginning this month, Fairhaven, Diamond Lake and West Oak Middle schools will collect empty Capri Sun and Honest Kids drink pouches from student lunches, classroom parties, etc. Once the district has 500 pouches, it can send them to TerraCycle, a company which will re-purpose the drink pouches into items like backpacks, messenger bags, folders, clip boards and laptop cases, which the company sells on its website www.terracycle.net. The district will receive two-cents for every pouch it provides to TerraCycle.

St. Joseph School As part of the TerraCycle program, St. Joseph School collects and gets cash for various brands, including all Mars brands candy wrappers. After Halloween (and anytime), people can send those empty wrappers to school. Collection boxes are the main foyer and cafeteria. The following brands are accepted: M&Ms, Skittles and Twix, Mars and Dove bars. Also, before people dispose of this year's Halloween costumes, they should consider donating it for next year's Green Halloween Used Costume Sale.