The Candy Wrapper Brigade is a partnership between Mars/Wrigley, Cadbury and TerraCycle, a company that makes products from non-recyclable waste materials. They're currently asking for you to send in some of your used candy wrappers to use as raw materials for their products.

Founder and CEO of TerraCycle, Tom Szaky has been collecting and upcycling refuse since childhood, starting with discarded TVs and computer monitors.

In the days leading up to Halloween, American consumers spend nearly $2 billion on candy. By the time the sugar-high wears off, millions of candy wrappers have been needlessly discarded and end up in landfills.  That’s why TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  has partnered with Mars/Wrigley and Cadbury to create a second life for those used candy wrappers. This holiday season, conscious consumers are invited to join the Candy Wrapper Brigade by saving the wrapper every time they enjoy a Mars/Wrigley or Cadbury candy product. Collected wrappers are then sent in to the company where they’ll be upcycled into purses, backpacks, coolers, and other innovative products.

In the days leading up to Halloween, American consumers spend nearly $2 billion on candy. By the time the sugar-high wears off, millions of candy wrappers have been needlessly discarded and end up in landfills.  That’s why TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  has partnered with Mars/Wrigley and Cadbury to create a second life for those used candy wrappers. This holiday season, conscious consumers are invited to join the Candy Wrapper Brigade by saving the wrapper every time they enjoy a Mars/Wrigley or Cadbury candy product. Collected wrappers are then sent in to the company where they’ll be upcycled into purses, backpacks, coolers, and other innovative products.

This holiday season, conscious consumers are invited to join the Candy Wrapper Brigade by saving the wrapper every time they enjoy a Mars/Wrigley or Cadbury candy product. Collected wrappers are then sent in to the company where they'll be upcycled into purses, backpacks, coolers, and other innovative products.

Then there was keynoter Tom Szaky, founder of TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/> , whose out-of-the-bottle thinking created a new business and a way to recycle a multitude of products previously designated for the waste stream. After devising an ingenious method for farming worm poop (yes, I said worm poop) and converting it to fertilizer, TerraCycle then came up with the idea of recycling old Coke and Pepsi bottles--as is, without breaking them down first--to distribute the product, turning two types of garbage into a resaleable and useful product simultaneously and cheaply. (The only first-run part of the product is the label.)

SOUTHBOROUGH, MA, October 20 – The teachers at the Woodward Memorial School 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.

Szaky explained how he started TerraCycle in his dorm room at Princeton University, collecting waste from the campus. Tom Szaky, the recipient of the College’s 2nd Annual Award for Innovative Leadership, may be the creator and CEO of TerraCycle, a Trenton-based company pioneering an international movement to help save our planet — but he hasn’t always been the conventional role model.

Well I have read and heard some pretty awesome things about Terra Cycle so when I had the opportunity to share about them and check out one of their products I got really excited!! TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  makes affordable, eco-friendly products from a wide  range of different non-recyclable waste materials. With over 50 products  available at major retailers like Walmart, Target, The Home Depot,  OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market, TerraCycle is one of the  fastest growing eco-friendly manufacturers in the world. Our hope is to  eliminate the idea of waste by finding innovative, unique uses for  materials others deem garbage.

We here the words 'reduce, reuse, recycle' a lot  when it comes to cleaning our our environment and cutting down on waste in our landfills but have you thought much about the word 'upcycle'? To ucpcycle an item would be to use the product again in a totally different way than it was originally used.  Terracycle  <http://www.terracycle.net/> has found a ton of ways to take our trash and recyclables and make them into something new. The great thing about this company is that YOU can get involved, too!  Here is a little bit about Terracycle from their website: