UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State is participating in a new "green" initiative by collecting candy wrappers that are recycled and converted into various products. Through a TerraCycle program called the Candy Wrapper Brigade, which awards points for each wrapper collected, the Center for the Performing Arts wants to accumulate enough points to provide clean drinking water for a year to a family of four in a developing country. Patrons attending Center for the Performing Arts and other presentations at Eisenhower auditorium are encouraged to place used candy wrappers in lobby collection boxes. Eligible waste -- from auditorium concession sales or from home or office use -- includes individual candy wrappers, large candy bags and multi-pack candy bags.

TerraCycle is an inspired company that began with the simple concept of eliminating everyday waste. Ten years ago, emboldened by this idea of “outsmarting waste,” Princeton student Tom Szaky started selling cartons of worm casting in plastic bottles. Now, a decade after its humble humus-based beginnings, TerraCycle is a multimillion dollar company with a global waste recycling program that turns common trash items into products like purses and swing sets. In partnership with companies such as Kraft and Nabisco, Tom has seemingly done the impossible— he has gotten some of the biggest corporations in the world to sponsor the upcycling and recycling of their own trash. Here’s how it works: Everyday people throw away consumer packaging and other odds and ends that could easily be reused and recycled into something else. TerraCycle works by providing the means for anyone to collect and recycle these products. Schools, neighborhoods, or even individuals can sign up for a “Brigade,” or recognized cotillion of trash collectors. Each Brigade is provided with Collection Kits for goods like juice pouches and yogurt cups. Once their kit is full, a Brigade sends the box back to TerraCycle, earning money to donate towards the charity of their choice. From there, TerraCycle takes each waste item and upcycles or recycles them into products like kites, backpacks, and benches. These products are available online and from retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, and Wholefoods, thus bringing the whole circle back around. The same juice pouch purchased from Wal-Mart the previous year can now sit on the self as a CD case.

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.

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 and Partners Provide Upcycled Costume Ideas and Free Collection Programs for Halloween Trash Halloween is one of the best times of the year for creative people as they set out to make their own eye-catching costumes and bags. Halloween lovers can now create costumes out of used candy wrappers and other non-recyclable packaging commonly found this time of year, all thanks to TerraCycle’s do-it-yourself costume ideas. Then, after Halloween, families can send their candy wrappers back to TerraCycle (for free!) and earn money for a local charity or school.

TerraCycle and Partners Provide Upcycled Costume Ideas and Free Collection Programs for Halloween Trash Halloween is one of the best times of the year for creative people as they set out to make their own eye-catching costumes and bags. Halloween lovers can now create costumes out of used candy wrappers and other non-recyclable packaging commonly found this time of year, all thanks to TerraCycle’s do-it-yourself costume ideas. Then, after Halloween, families can send their candy wrappers back to TerraCycle (for free!) and earn money for a local charity or school.

As students headed back to class this fall in dozens of area schools, they were reminded to think twice before dumping the remains of their school lunch in the trash. The schools- more than 50 of them in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin Counties- are partnering with TerraCycle, a national "upcycling" and recycling company which comes up with creative ways to reuse non-recyclable or hard to recycle waste.

The designers at TerraCycle refer to themselves as “junkies.” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders may not recognize job addiction, but after speaking with the company’s resident design junkies, it is not hard to imagine withdrawal symptoms on days off. Not simply because the Trenton, New Jersey-based recycling and upcycling firm does eco-friendly work, but because so much of what they do, or fail to do, is an exercise in recombinant aesthetics. It was hard not to picture a modern art piece dangling in the Guggenheim when Brad Sherman, one of TerraCycle’s design junkies, told me about a chandelier he made of used eyeglasses. Although this project, and his bamboo-like picture frames made of cigarette butts, never made it to market, it says something about a company when even its failures can be mistaken for art.

Atlanta (CNN) -- They say one man's trash is another man's treasure and for Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, that couldn't be more true. His New Jersey-based company is helping millions of people wise-up to waste recycling. But is was a wacky idea that got 29-year-old Szaky started. "My friends and I were trying to grow some plants and realized worm poop was one of the best fertilizers to feed them," Szaky said, "...and that suddenly started getting me to thinking differently about waste."