Five bins and food tumbler keep waste, packages out of landfill.

A few times per month, a separate set of students get together to count the plastic bags and juice containers that students drop off at the end of lunch. The school sends the waste materials to TerraCycle, a New Jersey company that fashions a range of products — including toys, backpacks and pet products — from the waste it receives as part of the company’s Upcycling program. “It saves the trash from going to the landfill,” said 10-year-old Vincent Scott. When students have collected 500 juice pouches, cleaned them and packed them, the school mails them to TerraCycle. The schools gets 2 cents apiece in return, and TerraCycle pays the postage.

As part of its recycling campaign, Walmart is beginning this month to sell eco-friendly pet products such as dog beds and kitty litter boxes made from trash. Another new Walmart effort begun this month is a collection system for 28 types of trash that’s being tried at five stores on the East Coast. TerraCycle, takes the waste, including candy wrappers, pens and coffee bags, and upcycles the waste into products like tote bags and portable speakers.

Another new Wal-Mart effort begun this month is a collection system for 28 types of trash that's being tried at five stores on the East Coast. Another company, TerraCycle, takes the waste, including candy wrappers, pens and coffee bags, and upcycles the waste into products like tote bags and portable speakers, reports GreenBiz.com.

About TerraCycle It’s always great to hear about companies like Terracycle because they make eco-friendly products and recycling is always a great way to give back. But what makes Terracycle unique is that they take non-recyclable products to make new products that other people would see as garbage. Terracycle is one of the fastest growing eco-friendly companies in the world. This of course is because of good reason!

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.

8/7c National Geographic This new docu-reality series follows an ingenious group of eco-capitalists at TerraCycle, Inc., a green business that creates and sells products made from non-recyclable waste materials. In the first episode of a three-hour marathon, Pedigree challenges the TerraCycle crew to develop a line of pet products. With a strict two-week deadline, the participants quickly get to work, collecting hundreds of old dog-food bags and using them to make a variety of products, from leashes and collars to dog toys and rain gear. The other episodes’ tasks: build a garbage can from potato chip wrappers, design fishing lures from old CDs and make a suit jacket out of Target shopping bags. — Karen Andzejewicz

While flipping through the channels tonight, we found a show on National Geographic (NatGeo) Channel called Garbage Moguls featuring Terracycle, a company I previously highlighted in the blog. http://peaceloveplanet.blogspot.com/2010/04/time-has-come.html The show takes you behind the scenes to show how they take garbage and make it into products...and that is the key, being able to recycle things into products that are affordable, and a worthwhile product that someone would want to buy.  On the show I watched, Pedigree Dog Food contacted them and challenged them to use their dog food bags, and dog food pouches (trash that would otherwise end up in the garbage) to design usable pet products.  They have designed and sold many other products made from chip bags, cookie wrappers, Capri Sun bags, and much more.  Check out their cool lunch box made from Capri Sun bags.

“Garbage Moguls” 8, 11 p.m. (NATGEO) This new docu-reality series follows an ingenious group of eco-capitalists at TerraCycle Inc., a green business that creates and sells products made from non-recyclable waste materials. In the opener, Pedigree challenges the TerraCycle crew to develop a line of pet products, with a strict two-week deadline.

Garbage Moguls 8/7c National Geographic This new docu-reality series follows an ingenious group of eco-capitalists at TerraCycle, Inc., a green business that creates and sells products made from non-recyclable waste materials. In the first episode of a three-hour marathon, Pedigree challenges the TerraCycle crew to develop a line of pet products. With a strict two-week deadline, the participants quickly get to work, collecting hundreds of old dog-food bags and using them to make a variety of products, from leashes and collars to dog toys and rain gear. The other episodes' tasks: create a garbage can from potato chip wrappers and make a suit jacket out of Target shopping bags.

-- Tonight's installment of "Garbage Moguls" (8 p.m., Saturday, National Geographic) follows the intrepid employees of TerraCycle, innovative recyclers and product designers who fashion new items out of the stuff the rest of us throw away. 

Tonight's challenge is to make a line of pet products from discarded dog-food bags.