We all want to be greener. The three R's have become ingrained in our minds since we were little kids. I know I try to recycle and reuse what I can, when I can, but I fall short. Sometimes, I stare at a used up item and just wonder what I can make out of it before I give up and it goes out into the recycling bin! TerraCycle has taken the guess work out of turning trash into treasure with their unique site!
So how do they do it? TerraCycle takes items that are traditionally non-recyclable, think your kids juice pouches, toothbrushes, even chip bags, and turns them into products we can use in our everyday lives. You can send them your used up packages through their website or purchase upcycled items from stores like Target and Whole Foods. I was sent a few items to review and each one is a perfect gift for someone on your holiday list, or, perhaps yourself!
There are tons of
companies and individuals trying to capitalize on the recycling trend. Terracycle is taking that trend to another level. They are recycling waste products or upcycling to create new products while reducing the products that would normally just go to a landfill.
Products include traditional garden supplies like a Terra Stone Plant Caddy retailing for $14.99, the Eco-Terra Watering Can for $11.99 and TerraCycle’s trademark All-Purpose Plant Food for $4.99 – $32.00 at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, independent garden centers and online. Another classic TerraCycle product line includes school products including backpacks, lunch bags, pencil cases, notebooks, binders and more!
One of our most interesting gifts include foldable, portable and lightweight Eco-Speakers for $19.99, made from upcycled trash to tuneful treasure. Other unique items include tote bags, lunch sacks, toiletry cases and travel pouches made from repurposed USPS mail bags and upcycled tents. All USPS and tent products will be available online at www.uncommongoods.com. Lunch sacks will retail for $37.00, dopp kits for $38.00, and tote bags for $46.00. The Coin Pouch, Tote, and iPad Case will retail from $14.00 – $84.00.
For my review, we received the
Capri Sun Rectangular Lunchbox,
M&M’s Eco Speakers, and the
Upcycled Tent Dopp Kit.
When shopping for the “green” friend or loved one, it’s important to remember their ultimate concern is reducing waste. However, that is no excuse to
not buy a gift. Instead, give a high quality gift they are guaranteed to appreciate or, alternatively, a gift made from recycled materials. Here are five affordable TerraCycle products available at select Walmart and Target stores and online.
Coin Pouch
- Recycled Material: USPS Mail Sacks
- Price: $14.00
- Description: This pouch is super sturdy and can hold a number of small items such as money, makeup, and small accessories.Each piece is custom handmade from a distinct mail sack and will differ in terms of graphics. Perfect gifts for the eco-fashionista who loves unique and one-of-a-kind accessories.
Backpack
- Upcycled Material: Capri Sun Pouches
- Price: $21.99
- Description: These fun school supplies are sure to get attention from classmates. The sight of the familiar juice pouches will make any co-ed nostalgic of their grade school days! These are exciting gifts for the cutesy co-ed who loves attention.
Speaker Set
- Recycled Material: M&M’s Wrappers
- Price: $16.99
- Description: A very practical gift for any co-ed—the “green” aspect is only a plus! This portable speaker set is made from 80 percent recycled materials and folds for easy storage. The 3.5 mm universal plug works with your iPod, iPhone, MP3 player, laptop, or computer. Available at Radio Shack.
Travel Toiletry Case
- Upcycled Material: Tents
- Price: $38.00
- Description: Each unique piece is custom handmade from different parts of a tent. Perfect for the on the go, eco-friendly man in your life.
Corkboard
- Upcycled Material: Wine Corks
- Price: $19.99
- Description: This classy gift will sparkle in any co-eds dorm room. If she needs a place to hang her to-do list, study guides, and family photos, why not make it eco-friendly?
TerraCycle is a great new way to recycle! You can send in your ‘trash’ things like chip and cookies wrappers, juice pouches and more to be turned into things like binders, pouches, and more.
TerraCycle’s purpose is to eliminate the idea of waste. We do this by creating national recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste. Anyone can sign up for these programs, called the Brigades, and start sending us waste.
TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and materials. With more than 20 million people collecting waste in over 20 countries TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products available at major retailers ranging from Walmart to Whole Foods Market.
Our goal is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating collection and solution systems for anything that today must be sent to a landfill.
Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, then a 20-year-old Princeton University freshman, TerraCycle began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid worm poop in used soda bottles. Since then TerraCycle has grown into one of the fastest-growing green companies in the world.
Products include traditional garden supplies like a Terra Stone Plant Caddy retailing for $14.99, the Eco-Terra Watering Can for $11.99 and TerraCycle’s trademark All-Purpose Plant Food for $4.99 – $32.00 at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, independent garden centers and online.
Other unique items include tote bags, lunch sacks, toiletry cases and travel pouches made from repurposed USPS mail bags and upcycled tents. All USPS and tent products will be available online at www.uncommongoods.com. Lunch sacks will retail for $37.00, dopp kits for $38.00, and tote bags for $46.00. The Coin Pouch, Tote, and iPad Case will retail from $14.00 – $84.00. We are also featuring portable, battery free Eco-Speakers for $19.99.
I like to think of my self as a responsible consumer, I recycle what I can and compost when I remember but there is one company that takes recycling to the next level and reuses products I never would have thought possible.
TerraCycle reuses everything from drink pouches to tape containers. It is amazing the things that they can make from things we consider trash.
The Terra Stone
Plant Caddy is made with recycled juice pouches. It is perfect for moving planters around in your
container garden, I have mine in the house under a large plant that is heavy to move when needed.
The TerraCycle plant caddy holds up to 200lbs (while it is not recommended, it can be used as a scooter, you remember the old ones from grade school PE class!). The top of the caddy is made in the USA and the caddy is assembled in the USA, bringing jobs to the area.
One of TerraCycle’s first products was their
plant fertilizer. TerraCycle was founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, they began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid Worm poop in used soda bottles. The Organic Based Garden Granular Plant Food is all natural, made in the USA and comes in a recycled bottle that you can send back to TerraCycle to reuse again when empty. I do find it pretty funny that the side of the bottle says “DO NOT EAT” but just in case of accidental ingestion, TerraCycle’s plant food is certified Non-toxic.
TerraCycle products can be found at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, independent
garden centers and online.
TerraCycle is a company renowned for turning trash into treasure. Here's an inside look at the graffiti-clad warehouse in Trenton, N.J. where much of the upcycling magic happens.Late last week, I had the pleasure of touring the Trenton, N.J. offices of
TerraCycle, a “waste solution development” firm with the most admirable mission to "eliminate the idea of waste."
Unfamiliar with TerraCycle? Well, if you’ve ever seen or owned a
tote bag made from Dorito wrappers, a
coupon holder made from tortilla packaging, or a
Christmas tree skirt made from Capri Sun pouches, chances are that it came from TerraCycle. And, of course, there’s the company’s signature product, launched in 2001 by vermicomposting Princeton student-turned-eco-entrepreneur
Tom Szaky: liquefied
worm poop plant fertilizer packaged in recycled plastic two-liter soda bottles.
In addition to liquefied worm poop and trashy handbags, TerraCycle offers dozens upon dozens of additional consumer products made from
recycled and
upcycled materials ranging from
plastic lumber lawn furniture to
M&M’s wrapper kites. (More provocative prototype designs such as
wall clocks made from pregnancy tests and picture frames made from cigarette butts do exist, but don’t expect to find them on the shelves at your local Target ... at least, yet). Of the mostly pre-consumer waste collected by TerraCycle (more on that in a bit), 95 percent is recycled, 4 percent is upcycled, and 1 percent is reused. To date the company has collected over 2,432,696,434 units of waste.
So how does TerraCycle amass all the raw materials for their products? As mentioned, a majority is sent to TerraCycle as pre-consumer waste by various companies. The rest of it — the hard/impossible to recycle post-consumer waste that many folks end up tossing in the garbage — is largely collected through the company's popular
Brigades program. Most, but not all, Bridgades have
point-raising incentives and are often instituted as fundraising schemes at schools and nonprofit organizations. Alternately, the points earned through collecting waste and sending it to TerraCycle can also be used towards charitable contributions. TerraCycle Brigades span across a wide range of categories usually paired with a corporate sponsor:
Fllip-flops,
toothbrushes,
chip bags, wine pouches,
Solo cups,
printer cartridges,
energy bar wrappers, and the list goes on and on. Most recently, the company launched a
Tom’s of Maine Natural Care Brigade, which also entails a
sweepstakes.
Many people talk about being environmentally friendly, but members of the Oak Park Elementary School EnAct Club are taking action.
The club, with 92 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students, sponsored a bottle cap contest and collected more than 1,017 pounds of plastic bottle caps in honor of Earth Day last month. Those caps will be sent to Aveda to be recycled into beauty product containers instead of winding up in a landfill or incinerator. Money raised from the contest will benefit cancer victims.
Throughout the year, the students in the club take part in various recycling efforts. They placed containers in the school cafeteria and around the building to collect plastic bottles, dairy tubs, juice and chip bags. EnAct club members then clean and prepare that trash to be shipped to Terracycle. Terracycle, of Trenton, N.J., pays for the shipping, gives the club money and makes new products from the trash materials. Terracycle products are sold at Target, Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes.
The club also coordinates paper collection for recycling at the school. A company called Abitibi then makes new paper from the recycled paper. The Oak Park Home & School Association receives money for each ton of paper the students collect. Members of the club also take part in North Penn’s Green Schools program, to help the district save energy.
“I like how you get to save energy for the Earth and save electricity and money for the school,” said Rebecca Brandolph, 11, a fifth-grader who is in EnAct.
Patrick Flatley, 10, a fourth-grader, said, “I like when we get to go outside and plant flowers for the environment. It’s fun and we get to do a lot of activities to help save the earth.”
“I learned that there’s something called a phantom load, even when you think your appliances are off, you can still be using electricity,” said Garrett Zobel, 12, a sixth-grader. “It’s important to check.”
Zobel also came up with the slogan: “If the light’s too bright, it’s not bad for your sight. Do the math and turn off half.” That explains the club’s action plan to get teachers to turn off lights. They’ve also used incentives like certificates as rewards and motivation to save energy, said Brandolph.
Brandolph and Steve Kowalczyk, 11, who is also in fifth grade, were slated to do a presentation about what the club has done at the Green Schools celebration Tuesday. Their presentation shows that they measured how much lights in each classroom cost per year. “We went around to every classroom and got all the data and figured out the total cost for a year,” he said.
Amy Walter, a teacher who advises the group, said the students have learned about “recycling and reducing energy and taking care of our planet Earth.” This is the sixth year for the club.
Juice Bags: Unfortunately, common juice bags are a combination of plastic polymer and aluminum, which isn’t recyclable. But don’t throw them away – collect them and send them to your favorite charity. TerraCycle will donate 2 cents for every Capri Sun, Kool-Aid and Honest Kids drink pouch – and a penny for every other brand. Not only that, they provide free shipping. TerraCycle turns old juice bags and pouches into hip and colorful purses, totes and pencil cases. Check them out yourself at Target and Walgreens, or at teracycle.net.
The Terra Stone Plant Caddy is made from drink pouches recycled into TerraCycle plastic. The caddy can be found in Target stores.
The saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. For TerraCycle, an upcycling and recycling company in Trenton, N.J., trash from schools in Knoxville and surrounding areas has become its treasure.
Items that are traditionally non-recyclable — such as Frito-Lay chip bags, Capri Sun drink pouches, MOM Brands cereal bags and Colgate oral care products — are collected to make products sold in stores such as Target.
The company recycles — or upcycles — trash into backpacks, tote bags, pencil cases, notebooks, messenger bags, and binders as well as watering cans and plant caddies.
The schools and community groups around the country who send their trash to TerraCycle don't do so without reward. The items collected accumulate points which can be converted to cash or gifts.
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What's even better than recycling your old, unused stuff and garbage? ---Finding someone who will do it for you and will use it to make fun purses, duffle bags, and even wristlets. TerraCycle® is a waste fighting company who does just that, recycling and upcycling materials that are typically thought of as non-recyclable (things like food and drink wrappers, newspapers, and trash cans) and turning them into new products. The products range from things like purses and pencil holders and to larger products like compost bins, all of which can be purchased either online through the TerraCycle ® website or in stores like Wal-Mart© and Target©. Participants can even join waste collection programs to send in their own trash and earn money for charity organizations. All of the products are practical and keep waste products out of landfills, but there are a few items that really catch the eye of an eco-fashionista.
One of my favorites is the Reverse Printed Wrapper Hearts Wristlet®. The wristlet, made from discarded potato chip bags, is crafted from the reverse side of the chip bag, yet it remains compact, cute, and mostly unnoticeable as a former piece of trash.
Another cool find from TerraCycle® is the Bicycle Chain Picture Frame®. The frame comes in both pink and silver and is a nice subtle way to incorporate a touch of upcycled style into your life.
The Pulltab shoulder bag® is also a stylish way to help the planet while completing your outfit with an intriguing accessory.
Finally finishing off my list of current favorites is the Circut Board Desk Clock®.
The clock is both sylish and useful and is one of several products made from the upcycled circuit boards, and could be purchased to complement the Circuit Board Coasters
