Solve and Benefit

TerraCycle’s team of scientists and designers have found ways to recycle and upcycle the waste we collect into cool new products. When we upcycle a piece of waste we leverage both the material it is made from and the original shape of the waste. When we recycle we transform the collected waste into new products through a variety of processes like injection molding. Best of all, when you're done with a TerraCycle product you can put it back in the original Brigade collection program and get credit for the waste a second time. One Brigade focuses on collecting candy wrappers. Participating in a TerraCycle Brigade is totally free. There are no signup or participation fees, and the shipping is covered by the program. Once you have joined the Candy Wrapper Brigade®, simply follow the steps below to receive your TerraCycle points:

WAVERLY, Iowa --- Recycling is second nature to Joanna Ewest, who remembers newspaper drives as a school girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest. Hanging on to more obscure trash --- like empty cheese packages, cereal bags and pretzel containers --- is a relatively new habit, one she hopes fellow Waverly residents embrace. "My motive is we should take care of what we are given," Ewest said. "We've been given this wonderful earth and should be taking care of it."

TerraCycle is going to turn your trash into KME's cash! These are all the items we are collecting.

Building awareness about environmental concerns is one thing. Getting people to actually change their behaviors and become better stewards of the environment themselves is quite another, and much more difficult to accomplish as University of Illinois students in Ming Kuo's Environmental Psychology class learned. They worked in groups to evaluate programs that promote environmental sustainability and make recommendations for how the programs could improve their effectiveness. According to Kuo, the student groups were paired with actual clients, making the project not just an assignment for a grade, but a real-world problem to solve.

TerraCycle Ceo Tom Szaky was interviewed by Philadelphia SmartCEO Magazine about eco-entrepreneurship.

A Rochester family helps the environment by recycling items that are usually not recyclable. Cheryl Bertou runs a small makeshift recycling canter in her basement. "We raised about $200.00 and kept about 13,000 items out of landfills," says Bertou through the fundraiser TerraCycle. They are collecting candy wrappers, chip bags, and personal care and beauty items that are then shipped off to TerraCycle.

Cheryl Bertou and her 9-year-old son, who participate in TerraCycle's Brigade program, were featured on Rochester News. Cheryl effectively articulates what TerraCycle is all about in this two minute clip.

Tom Szaky, 30, is the founder and CEO of TerraCycle, Inc., one of the world’s foremost leaders in eco-capitalism, recycling and upcycling. In 2006, Inc Magazine named TerraCycle “The Coolest Little Startup in America.” That same year Szaky was named the “Number-One CEO in America Under 30.” Szaky came to the U.S. in 2001 when he matriculated as a Princeton University freshman. In 2002, he took a leave of absence to dedicate himself full-time to starting TerraCycle, which began as a two-man outfit in a dorm room in Princeton. Today, TerraCycle runs packaging reclamation and post-consumer waste solution programs for major CPG companies, such as Kraft Foods, Nestle, L'Oreal, Mars, GSK, Kimberly-Clark Professional and many more. TerraCycle has expanded these recycling and upcycling fundraisers — which pay schools and non-profits to collect used packaging and products — into 20 countries, including Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the UK, Ireland, Israel and Turkey. In 2010, TerraCycle was named the 288th fastest growing privately held company in America in Inc Magazine’s annual listing, the Inc 500. In four years of running free recycling programs, TerraCycle has collected over 3 billion units of waste and donated over $4 million to schools and non-profits. In 2012, TerraCycle is projecting roughly $15 million in revenue.

One man’s trash is another’s treasure — and Tom Szaky is living proof. The Hungarian native’s fascination with trash goes back a long way. While studying at Princeton, he and his mates cultivated a huge worm farm, which they fed with cafeteria waste. They then sold the resulting Worm Poop (very effective fertilizer, or so we’ve heard) in bottles they’d found in the trash. It was a win-win: they made money, and the project was environmentally friendly too. Fast forward to 2012, and Tom, as the founder and CEO of TerraCycle, Inc, one of the world’s foremost leaders in eco-capitalism, recycling and upcycling, was named #1 CEO in America Under 30 by Inc. Magazine. Today, with a projected $15 million in revenue and clients like Kraft Foods, Nestle, L’Oreal, Mars, GSK and Kimberly-Clark Professional, TerraCycle is a post-consumer waste solution force to be reckoned with. They’re even teaming up with cigarette companies — talk about an odd couple! TerraCycle isn’t just good business — it’s ‘good’ business. They’ve expanded their recycling and upcycling fundraisers, which pay schools and nonprofits to collect used packaging and products, into 20 countries, including Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brasil, UK, Ireland, most EU countries, Israel and Turkey.

Brittany Lowe, an eighth-grader at Citrus Hills Intermediate School in Corona, has collected candy wrappers — thousands of them — in less than two months. And someday, those wrappers may help people with a genetic muscular condition that most children won’t survive past their first year. The timing couldn’t have been better as candy wrappers typically appear out of nowhere around Halloween. Since then, Brittany has collected and shipped 32 pounds of wrappers, and has plenty more to send to TerraCycle in New Jersey, which pays two cents per wrapper and then “repurposes” them into binders, notebooks and tote bags.