Despite their growing global presence and epic partnerships, TerraCycle is unsurprisingly still down to earth -- and we mean down. Employees recently put their quirky upcycled designs to use by renovating their entire Trenton, New Jersey offices with waste material. Mountains of vinyl records, juice boxes, water bottles, and even bowling lanes became desks, dividers, lamps, and conference room tables. Hit the jump for a look at the inspiration-inducing space! We here at Inhabitat have long been huge fans of TerraCycle’s fun and fresh upcycled products and events throughout New York. Now their recent, homemade office renovations solidify their reputation as the hippest and possibly most committed waste repurposing company around.

Have you heard of Terracycle? I have heard the blogosphere buzzing about it, so I had to check it out! Terracycle is just the coolest! Besides making cool products, they are helping the environment! Let me try and summarize Terracycle up for you. From their website: TerraCycle upcycles and recycles traditionally non-recycable waste (including drink pouches, chip bags, tooth brushes and many more) into a large variety of consumer products. These products keep waste out of our landfills and contribute to a cleaner world.TerraCycle products are available at a wide range of major retailers from Wal*Mart to Target as well as online. They are eliminating waste in the landfill and make really neat products! Win-Win situation!

Albe Zakes is constantly surrounded by a shrine to garbage. The desks in his office are made from old doors, the walls from soda bottles, and the front showroom covered in recycled Astroturf. The desk dividers are made from vinyl records, and graffiti covers every wall. But considering his job, the workplace makes sense: he’s in charge of media relations for TerraCycle Inc., which sells consumer products made from recycled waste. The company launched in 2001, selling worm poop as fertilizer to retailers like Home Depot and Wal-Mart. Now, TerraCycle recycles items like Frito-Lay chip bags, Clif Bar wrappers, and Capri Sun pouches to create tote bags, iPhone cases, and MP3 speakers.

Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or products that cannot be recycled into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value. This is a fairly new term in our increasingly eco-conscious world. Upcycling embraces uniqueness and creativity because upcycled products are truly one of a kind. One of the pioneers of upcycling is TerraCycle. They are taking wasteful materials such as drink pouches, chip bags, and tooth brushes and making them into a variety of neat consumer products. TerraCycle’s products are available through a number of retailers including Wal-Mart and Target as well as online. The goal of TerraCycle is to help eliminate waste. They run their own collection programs at many major retailers, theatres, stadiums, and restaurants. In fact, you can sign up on their website to donate certain waste items to TerraCycle and they’ll pay the shipping to get it from you and donate money to a charity of your choice. Find out more about How TerraCycle Works.

One of the activities that many of Michigan Green Schools participate in is the recycling of used packaging and products such as chip bags, candy wrappers and juice pouches. The waste is collected through TerraCycle's Brigade program (www.terracycle.net), which pays the schools and nonprofits for their efforts and then recycles the material into cool products.

Though recycling is not a new trend, many people are unaware that most objects are un-recyclable. This means that the traditional recycling method is too costly and inefficient to properly break down items such as chip bags, juice boxes, shampoo bottles, yogurt containers, candy wrappers, pens, butter tubs, and more. TerraCycle is a breakthrough company that intends to recycle the formerly un-recyclable. Now, anyone can sign up for the TerraCycle campaigns and send in their trash to be converted into new products. The best part, besides doing something good for Mother Nature, is the money anyone can receive from TerraCycle for donating their trash. The company reports to collect one million juice pouches every two to three days and returns $0.02 per pouch to the donator. By collecting and sending items that would normally end up in the trash, sewer, or ocean, they are able to help create products such as park benches, messenger bags and backpacks, fences, picture frames, just to name a few of more than 260 products feature on their website. TerraCycle does not actually make new products, but instead acts as a supplier to manufacturing companies that would normally use virgin material.

Terracycle, a Trenton company that specializes in recycling consumer goods generally considered not reusable, is moving on from kitschy tote bags to plastic lumber.

  In a world of where small businesses are run, TerraCycle is the name of a company that has a very unusual business model. This company which is progressing in “going-global” phase turns the world’s waste into new products. The production is carried by collection of non-recyclable waste mainly from manufacturers, also some from school, charities and other community groups. And as by becoming partners with manufactures to “recycle: of “upcycle” that waste materials into new products like plastic lumber from juice pouches and shower curtains from sewn-together granola wrappers. TerraCycle evolved from being a consumer products company that sold worm waste to Wal-Mart and other retailers to being a company that runs waste collection programs and oversees more than 1,500 unique products that are made from the collected material.