Terracycle <http://terracycle.net/> , founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky when he was a 19 year old Princeton freshman, began by selling all-natural plant fertilizers using old plastic soda bottles. The chemical fertilizer was literally "all-natural" because it was harvested from vermicompost <http://www.redwormcomposting.com/ecopreneurs/ten-things-i-love-about-terracycle/> : earthworm waste. Nearly ten years later, Terracycle products are being sold at major retailers like Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market.

Everyone's trash is TerraCycle, Inc.'s, treasure. Led by 28-year-old CEO Tom Szaky, the ``eco-capitalists'' at the pioneering recycling company make affordable, eco-friendly products from a wide range of non-recyclable waste materials, including drink pouches, chip bags, vinyl records and bicycle chains. They rummage through trash containers and landfills for materials, conduct brainstorming sessions on how to turn the trash into innovative products ... and hope to make millions. It's an unorthodox creative process, and it's not without plenty of stress, silliness and office politics.

TerraCycle turns drink pouches and other non-recycable packaging into trendy, fashionable gear for home, school and office, as featured in the August issue of Southwest Florida Parent & Child magazine. Enter here to win a TerraCycle backpak, lunch bag and pencil case (approximate retail value, $34). (Prize will not necessarily be identical to products shown above.)

While many companies boast of using 100% recycled materials for their paper or cardboard products, there are not many companies who take the extra step in saving the earth by "upcycling" previously non reusable products. TerraCyle is one company that is seeking to change that. TerraCycle's slogan is "outsmart waste" and this is exactly that this company has been doing since its inception nine years ago. Founded by a 19 year old Princeton student <http://www.terracycle.net/about_us> , TerraCycle has been focused on finding ways to upcycle everything from Capri Sun packages to Frito Lay chip bags. Because TerraCycle is an upcycling company, and not a recycling <http://www.associatedcontent.com/theme/607/recycling.html>  plant, the company does not turn juice packages into more juice packages. Instead, old "trash" finds a new life as it is changed into fashion bags, backpacks, fences, and more for a total of 186 upcycled products to date <http://www.terracycle.net/products> . Many of these products can be found for sale in stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, The Home Depot, Office Max, Petco, and Whole Foods Market.  The purpose of upcycling, overall, is to reduce landfill waste by producing products that are even better than the original item; in fact, most of the items used in TerraCycle's upcycling program would normally be considered non-recyclable.

TerraCycle, CLIF BAR, Kashi, Bear Naked and Odwalla partner to turn granola bar wrappers and bags into eco-friendly products, while earning money for local charities. And because offices and schools produce a tremendous amount of waste, TerraCycle recently partnered with Papermate, Sharpie, 3M, Scotch Tape, Elmer's and more to launch a new program that helps clean up offices and schools nationwide.

To its credit, Green Mountain is exploring more recyclable and compostable packaging. Mars partners with TerraCycle in a program that permits offices to ship used Flavia packs to a facility that churns them into products like pencil cases or notebooks—so that is one workaround Green Mountain could pursue.  Darby Hoover of the Natural Resources Defense Council suggested prepaid envelopes that consumers can just fill with empty pods, which would then end up in facilities that would repurpose them.

According to a Keep Blount Beautiful press release, TerraCycle makes affordable, eco-friendly products from a wide range of different non-recyclable waste materials. With more than 50 products available at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, The Home Depot, OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market, TerraCycle is one of the fastest growing eco-friendly manufacturers in the world. Their hope is to eliminate the idea of waste by finding innovative, unique uses for materials others deem garbage. Free collection programs pay schools and non-profits nationwide to collect used packaging such as drink pouches, energy bar wrappers, yogurt cups, cookie wrappers, chip bags, corks and more. The collected materials are upcycled into affordable, high quality products ranging from tote bags and purses to shower curtains and kites.

St. Paul of the Cross School and local office-supply business Garvey's Office Products teamed up earlier this year for the school's Green Initiative with a program they called the Writing Instrument Brigade.    Green Team committee member Amy Bartucci explained: "Children in all grades are being asked to properly dispose of old writing instruments made of plastic to be up-cycled into many different cool products through TerraCycle."

TerraCycle has introduced new Office Product Brigades, open to any supplier or consumer of office supplies and modeled after TerraCycle’s programs for schools that pay for the collection of drink pouches, yogurt cups and chip bags. These new programs, which collect any writing instrument, tape dispenser or glue product regardless of brand, were founded in response to the growing need to reduce the amount of useful materials going to landfill.

In honor of the upcoming holiday, Our Daily Green would like to celebrate a company that is taking huge steps to free our nation from trash. Last summer, we wrote about the company TerraCycle and their unique way of helping organizations raise money with trash. TerraCycle is a New Jersey based company that turns items such as juice bags, candy and chip wrappers, and glue bottles into funky, fun school and office supplies and other novelties.