Terracycle <http://www.myatlantamommy.com/2009/12/terracycle.html>  is a fantastic organization which takes used wrappers and turns them into some super cool stuff! They are always coming up with fun and cool ways to recycle, but they also have come up with a way (actually 6 ways) Moms can go green, reduce waste at home, AND raise money for their kids school and/or favourite charity.

As global director of product at Royal Robbins, Scott Hamlin was responsible for eliminating the outdoor-clothing company's "fabric liability" -- mountains of surplus cloth. "It wasn't quite enough to make a production run, and it was more than what was conscionable to just throw away," he says. "So we would write the check to the textile factory and the factory would take over from there, and nobody ever asked where that fabric went." He knew, though, that much of it would end up in landfills. So did his industry peers Gary Peck and Jim Stutts. So last year, the three joined forces to launch a company to "upcycle" excess fabric into hip apparel for outdoor enthusiasts. TerraCycle pushed upcycling into the consumer lexicon by making new products out of post-consumer packaging. Looptworks -- the name is a take on closed-loop, zero-waste manufacturing -- is among a new wave of startups that are tackling the other end of the garbage problem: pre-consumer waste.

Isaac said after her students learned about landfills, they wanted to do something to help the earth and began to raise money through TerraCycle. TerraCycle gives 2 cents for each recyclable received and uses the collections to make tote bags, backpacks and insulated coolers. Smith paraprofessional and parent Cherie Loomis and husband Scott Loomis collected the juice boxes and cookie wrappers to deliver to TerraCycle. By the end of the school year, the students will have raised almost $200, Scott said.

Along the way, Szaky (photo below) described how Terracycle had to negotiate with Pepsi and Coke for the rights to use their bottle shapes. He also talked about bottling, sleeving, and capping thousands of bottles of liquid garden fertilizer by hand before opening a factory in New Jersey; about getting sued by Scott’s, the garden product company, for trade dress infringement; and about how Terracycle and its unique upcycling concept of turning packaging waste into consumer products—bags, kites, pencil cases--is taking off around the world. “We’re establishing ourselves in a new country about every six weeks,” he told his Packaging Summit audience.