I just finished reading one of the most kid-friendly books which explains how plastic recycling works. It’s “The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling” by Alison Inches, and illustrated by Pete Whitehead. On the cover is a plastic water bottle waving from its spot on a conveyor belt. While appropriate for elementary-aged kids, it’s also a great read for grownups. It begs the question: “Have you ever thought about where your plastic bottle came from?” Plastic bottles are so abundant and easy to find that we end up taking them for granted most of the time. Perhaps you’ve never wondered what adventures your water bottle had been on long before it reached your hands. In the book, the story begins deep under the ocean in a thick, oozing blob of crude oil that’s been there for thousands of years. All seven types of plastic commonly used to manufacture new products begin as crude oil that is collected, then sent to an oil refinery. The process can refine crude oil into fuel, oil, gas and other types of products — including the plastic pellets used to make plastic bottles. Those pellets are then shipped to manufacturers that heat up the pellets and mold them into the shape of a bottle. Depending on the facility, the bottles are then sent to a bottling company which sanitizes, labels and fills the bottles with water. The new plastic water bottles are then shipped to stores where the product is sold to consumers. Shipping may involve traveling over hundreds of miles by air or tractor-trailer. Once at the store the product is unloaded by workers who restock shelves. All of that happens behind the scenes! Finally, a customer buys the water bottle, consumes the water and hopefully recycles it so it can be remade into a new product. If the plastic bottle goes in the trash, it’s a very sad moment because the bottle will be buried and lost with no hope to be used again in the future. All of that time, effort — crude oil extraction, refinement, transportation — is lost after just one use. Plastic water bottles that are recycled can be remanufactured into new things, like fleece for ski jackets or sleeping bags, yarn for carpet, toys, clothing, furniture and more. Talk about an adventure-filled life! According to the book “Make Garbage Great: The Terracycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle” by Tom Szaky and Albe Zakes, about 802,000 tons of No. 1 plastic bottles (such as those for water and soda) were recycled in the U.S. in 2011. But, during that same year more than twice that amount, about 1.9 million tons, were thrown out. This amount doesn’t include the other types of plastic, like No. 2 for milk and laundry detergent jugs. Plainly stated, out of all the bottles and jugs being manufactured, the majority are not making it to the recycling bin.

Printed on woodfree paper in a fresh design with DYI projects for all ages, Make Garbage Great has broad appeal—it’s smart and instructive, playful and crafty, environmentally contentious and inspiring. With craft projects ranging from a simple, folded coin purse from a CapriSun pouch to a beautiful pallet coffee table, the colloquial voices of Tom Szaky and Albe Zakes make the engaging information, little known facts, compelling graphics, and sustainable suggestions accessible for teachers, parents, DIY artists, and even young readers.

Fully titled Make Garbage Great: The TerraCycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle this book is AWESOME! It's a large hardbound, 224 page, book.  You will find fascinating information, little-known facts, awesome graphics, and colorful images on every page.

TerraCycle, Inc. started in 2001 when CEO and Founder Tom Szaky dropped out of Princeton University after his freshman year to sell liquefied worm poop in a reused soda bottle, for fertilizer purposes. Despite having little brand recognition and only rudimentary manufacturing operations, Szaky managed to get major big-box retailers like Walmart and The Home Depot to start testing the product in 2004. By 2006, TerraCycle's worm-poop-based plant foods were being sold nationally across the United States and Canada in Walmart, Target, The Home Depot and Whole Foods Market retail stores.

If they are put into our SSR bins, they will compromise the quality of other plastics recycled with them. Other tidbits of information about waste/recycling can be found in “Make Garbage Great” by Tom Szaky and Albe Zakes.

And if you’re looking for something smaller, pallets can be used to create accent furniture as well. In “Make Garbage Great,” author Albe Zakes converted a pallet into a modern-looking side table with minimal fuss.

Garbage is an unlikely topic for a terrific coffee-table book, but the authors and publisher have come close with "Make Garbage Great: The TerraCycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle." TerraCycle is a young company devoted to innovative recycling services as well as “upcycling,” an optimistic notion which holds that there’s a value-added world beyond the pyramid of reduce-reuse-recycle – that our everyday discards can be transformed into something better than the original item grown obsolete. One provocative example: TerraCycle turns cigarette filters into plastic pellets that can be used in the manufacture of durable plastic goods, like park benches and shipping pallets (with the paper and tobacco scraps being composted, of course).

Tom Szaky and Albe Zakes, the eco-entrepreneurs behind global recycling company TerraCycle have a pretty unique take on trash. Their new book Make Garbage Great explores the history of human waste and presents some creative ideas on how to make less of it in the future. Here's what they have to say about metal – a harmful pollutant that's too often shoved in with the trash.

Human beings manufacture nearly 200 billion pounds of plastic every year. To really grasp that figure, consider these facts: there are also about 200 billion stars in the Milky Way and approximately the same number of galaxies in the entire universe.

Your garbage might pile up faster than you think. In 2013, Americans created 254 million tons of waste, an average of 4.4 pounds per person every day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.