RUMSON, NJ - New Jersey based TerraCycle manufactures more than fifty products made from non-recyclable waste materials. Affordable, eco-friendly items such as shower curtains, purses and kites made from juice drink pouches and bulletin boards made from wine corks are sold in major retailers such as Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Office Max, Petco and Whole Foods Markets. The company has been featured on a National Geographic television program, (Garbage Moguls) won national awards and obtained high praise for its environmentally friendly products and for keeping hundreds of tons of garbage out of landfills. But, how do they amass the huge amount of materials needed to make their products? This is where the TerraCycle Brigades come in. The Brigades are part of a national program that pays school groups and non-profits to collect the items needed by TerraCycle to make its products.

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.

Phoenix Public Library and the city of Phoenix Public Works Department kick off Recycle Write on Monday, Nov. 1, 2010. Visit any one of 16 library locations or nine OfficeMax retail stores in Phoenix to deposit used pens, pencils and markers of all types in designated collection containers. The collected writing instruments will be shipped to TerraCycle, a company specializing in making consumer products from post-consumer materials.

Going green isn’t just about saving the earth anymore; it is a bit of a fashion statement and one that TerraCycle products are working so hard to create. TerraCycle products are made out of recycled goods and their products are becoming widely known. TerraCycle products come in different items including those for holidays, cleaning products, office supplies, and much more. Going green is much easier with TerraCycle products since their products are made out of recycled material and are earth friendly.

Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer were on the scene with their worm-based invention in 2001.  They fed organic waste from the dining hall to worms, then liquefied the excrement to make compost tea that was stored in used soda bottles [2].  Those bottles were collected on campus.  In 2002, they planned on expanding their work to other businesses by collecting their waste.  Szaky discovered that they had created the world's largest continuous flow reactor [3]. I was watching Garbage Moguls one night on National Geographic channel. They were featuring an all-weekend marathon on TerraCycle. The first night I watched, I was hooked. Their crew went all out! At the time of viewing, they were expanding into retailing after years of working with other companies to sell their products. The crew was having a small difficulty adapting to the new expansion and Tom Szaky brought them into his office. In particular, he spoke to two girls whom he delegated the responsibility to run the store. During an approximate 15 minutes chat, he highlighted his concerns and offered solutions. He would follow up with a visit to the retail store and work further with those two girls. The result was a dedicated team of girls who figured out how to get creative.

What excited me about my daughter’s project was her description “Inspired by Terracycle“. My daughter’s familiarity with Terracyle comes from items we have been sent to review for our blogs.

TerraCycle 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.

Tom Szaky, co-founder and chief executive officer of TerraCycle Inc., a company that has become the most eco-friendly brand in North America, will be the guest speaker for the Allan P. Kirby Lecture in Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 7 in the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center. The event is free to the public. TerraCycle is well known for TerraCycle plant food, a fertilizer made from worm feces available through retailers such as Walmart, Whole Foods and Home Depot. The company manufactures more than 50 consumer products. Other products include garbage cans made from crushed computers, handbags made from energy bar wrappers and juice pouches and eco-friendly binders and pencils. The company won more than 100 environmental and social awards. It has three manufacturing facilities in North America with headquarters located in Trenton, N.J.

I stumbled onto a company that turns the stuff people throw away every day into items that people also use every day. For example, do you eat Clif or Odwalla Bars while on a ride and then throw away the wrappers? Well, TerraCycle takes your discarded wrappers and turns them into messenger bags. Or how about coffee – this one’s not so obvious: coffee beans grow on trees with leaves and TerraCycle turns those leaves into high-quality copier paper, saving a little bit of tree in the process. Some other neat products that TerraCycle makes from your garbage: – plant pots made from computers and fax machines – clip boards made from circuit boards and juice boxes – stereo speakers from Starburst and M&M wrappers And see more on DwellSmart. Let’s face it, there’s lots to throw away, every day and everyone who eats or lives on the planet. That’s a lot of garbage! But TerraCycle is more than just reusing these pieces of trash to make useful, reusable items. For every piece of garbage that you send them, they will make a small donation ($.02) to the charity of your choice.

TST!  I'm so excited to be leading this new project with the Tisch Sustainability Team <http://tischsustainabilityteam.wordpress.com/>  (at work); starting Tuesday, September 7th we will be collecting chip bags and energy bar wrappers to send to TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  for up-cycling!  You faithful readers out there know how cool TerraCycle is, remember they sent me that awesome swag bag <http://www.girlygreengirl.com/2010/05/im-winner.html>  AND a hip drink pouch bag for my very first giveaway <http://www.girlygreengirl.com/2010/07/giveaway.html> ?!  Well you should see the up-cycled chip bag we're raffling off here at work, it's so yummy... I mean cool looking.  For each entry into either the wrapper or chip bag brigade, co-workers will be entered into a raffle for various eco-prizes, the grand prize being the up-cycled chip bag (sorry, Tisch workers only - for now - but if you happen to work on campus and want to participate feel free to inter-office mail me your wrappers and bags!!)

If you think most reality TV is garbage, TerraCycle’s reality show should fall right in line. Except it’s actually a good show…it just happens to be about garbage. Called Garbage Moguls, TerraCycle’s now-in-its-second-season TV show follows the enterprising young minds at one of the countries most promising recycling-related companies, and their exploits in the eco-world are anything but boring. Environmentally-conscious individuals will get a kick out of seeing how products get “upcycled” from someone’s trash to a new treasures sold in stores like Target and Office Max. Like a conversion of used dog food bags from Pedigree into a whole host of pet products that include leashes, toys and clothes, which are subsequently pitched to some dog accessory execs.