A floating swimming pool in New York’s Hudson river and a business turning cigarette butts into plastic pellets, hope to change perception of pollution and waste. By definition, a circular economy is a term for an industrial economy that is by design or intention, restorative.

Students and teachers at Sacred Heart School are the top collectors of lunch kits in the Lunch Kit Brigade, a free, national recycling program created by the trademark student lunch and snack company Lunchables Lunch Combinations and New Jersey-based waste recycler TerraCycle.

The kids at the Shawmont School in the Philadelphia School District have earned more than $2,000 by collecting drink pouches and sending them to TerraCycle, the Trenton, N.J., company that takes difficult-to-recycle packaging and “upcycles” it into products.

Holy Family Catholic School students have turned breakfast into cash for their school. They are among the top collectors of cereal bags in the MOM Brands Cereal Bag Brigade, a national recycling program.

Sold as fertilizer in used soda bottles, worm excrement set the scene for the still unfolding Cinderella story of TerraCycle. Founder Tom Szaky began TerraCycle in his Princeton University dorm room, then moved operations into a Trenton warehouse where the quirky company has expanded its recycling mission to include everything from cigarette butts to used diapers.

When Tiffany Threadgould moved into her Fairmount apartment in 2012, the first thing she did was trash the place. But for Threadgould, 40, that didn't mean making a mess. On the contrary, it's all about discovering beauty - or at least function - in objects that might otherwise be destined for the landfill.

Discarded butts are being turned into something useful. The first of 50 cigarette butt recycling receptacles was installed downtown Monday. Developers of the program say New Orleans is the first US city to participate in a large-scale recycling effort launched in Canada last year.