More and more, successful marketing means reaching your consumer and delivering your message through multiple channels and platforms. TerraCycle, a multiple-time Inc. 500 winner, has grown from a 2-man dorm room operation to a global phenomenon that collects and repurposes waste in 15 countries on 4 continents. In 2011, TerraCycle’s revenues will top $20 million after only 8 years in business. All this growth has occurred without buying a single paid advertisement of any kind. Instead of spending precious dollars on advertising and traditional sponsorship, TerraCycle uses a variety of low-cost marketing efforts, including massive public relations campaigns, corporate blogging, social media promotions and contests, brand ambassador programs, and grassroots marketing. TerraCycle also works with many of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies including Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mars, Kimberly-Clark, and L’Oreal. Through these partnerships, TerraCycle is able to create a variety of unique activation programs through Web site, retail programs, and more.

Which brings us to garbage. Albe Zakes – VP at Terracycle, told us how they have grown from a 2-man dorm room operation to a global phenomenon that collects and repurposes waste in 15 countries on 4 continents. Repurposing brand waste has become the real focus... repurpose and reuse being the key words. TerraCycle has changed the debate on brand responsibility. They realized every brand has a waste issue, most all their packaging is non recyclable and brands are not stepping up to deal with it. They pitched brands that spend millions on this packaging and branding to reuse their brand packaging and avoid the pollution of landfills and incineration. It is catching on. Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mars, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oreal Coca Cola and others have signed up and created partnerships.

Klein is very creative when it comes to sources of support for SCRAP-DC and saw TerraCycle’s national Brigade program as an opportunity to raise money and awareness about creative reuse. TerraCycle, an upcycling and recycling company, has a nationwide Brigade Program through schools, churches, and other nonprofit organizations to collect waste streams. To date, over 24 million Brigade supporters have removed over 2 billion waste products from traditional waste streams and raised over $3 million for nonprofits. SCRAP-DC is registered for Terracycle’s Candy Wrapper Brigade, which accepts candy wrappers for Mars, Wrigley and Cadbury products.

However, if your heart is truly begging and pleading for you to own a mountain of candy, The Wilderness Society suggests buying candy in bulk and buying sweets that comes in cardboard packaging rather than plastic. This shockingly small change means the material has a chance of being recycled rather than simply thrown away. But if you must buy your favorite treat and all its sticky mess of plastic foil wrap, know that there is still at least one option for recycling. TerraCycle is a company that upcycles Twix, 3 Musketeer, Snickers, Starburst and a variety of other wrappers sent to it, uses the material to make backpacks, tote bags and even laptop sleeves.

Last month my fascination with how values and purpose can drive corporate culture, products and brand took me to Trenton, New Jersey to visit a company called Terracycle [www.terracycle.net ]. Terracycle, it turns out, is an incredible example of how staying true to your values and purpose can translate into a robust business. Terracycle has pioneered a business model that is not only helping solve our garbage crisis; it's also fueled their exponential growth over the last several years. Now with revenues of $20 million a year, they are rapidly creating a new asset class—garbage.

TerraCycle is a pioneering upcycling and recycling company which collects non-recyclable trash and repurposes it into new, practical, eco-friendly products. Their line of products includes backpacks, pencil cases, notebooks, messenger bags, lunchboxes, binders, and homework folders as well as items like wine cork corkboards, picture frames, coasters, mp3 boomboxes & more. The trash is collected by student groups at schools across the country. Groups, which are called “Brigades,” can collect trash from juice pouches to chip bags to computer keyboards. They sign up for free, and then send their trash in to TerraCycle for free as well.

Making DIY costumes and bags for Halloween can help save money during the expensive holiday season. One great way to do this is by making costumes with upcycled or recycled materials – this eliminates the expenses involved with buying new items and also the eliminates the chances of running into someone else with the same store-bough costume! TerraCycle, a recycling and upcycling company, has a DIY costume and candy bag that can be created easily from items around the house.

It’s October which means I better get my daughter focused on her Halloween costume. Then, there’s the big debate over which candy to hand out. I’m a nougat fan! My husband will take anything with coconut. And, my daughter is a crispy chocolate lover. What if this Halloween, we give as much attention to the candy wrappers as the candy or the costumes? Thanks to a cool company called Terracycle, you can turn our Halloween candy wrappers into a fundraiser for your kid’s school or a charitable organization. Or, you can coordinate a family and friends activity where you donate your wrappers as part of a recycling effort.

Cub Scout Pack 140 and Elizabeth Lane Elementary School are teaming up to raise money for the school with discarded candy wrappers. Mars, Wrigley and Cadbury candy companies have launched TerraCycle, a recycling project that gives schools 2 cents for every wrapper collected. The Cub Scouts and the Elizabeth Lane Green Team ask that students – and community members – bring candy wrappers from M&Ms, Snickers, Starburst, Swedish Fish, Twix and Skittles to the receptacle located in the school’s main lobby, located at 121 Elizabeth Lane in Matthews. The fundraiser will run through Nov. 4.

This explains, for example, why I save packing peanuts and every so often take a big bagful of them out to Tait Farm, which re-uses them in their mail-order business. Or why I once spent money to ship a box of empty pill bottles I had accumulated to a friend in Madison, Wisc.—one of the few places where they can be recycled. So I was impressed to discover that Penn State’s Center for the Performing Arts has organized a drive to collect and recycle—of all things—plastic candy wrappers. Anyone attending a CPA show during the 2011–12 season is invited to bring in candy wrappers or multi-pack candy bags (trick-or-treat candy, anyone?) and drop them in one of the collection boxes in the lobby. The CPA staff will then ship the wrappers to an organization called TerraCycle, which will recycle them.