The designers at TerraCycle refer to themselves as “junkies.” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders may not recognize job addiction, but after speaking with the company’s resident design junkies, it is not hard to imagine withdrawal symptoms on days off. Not simply because the Trenton, New Jersey-based recycling and upcycling firm does eco-friendly work, but because so much of what they do, or fail to do, is an exercise in recombinant aesthetics. It was hard not to picture a modern art piece dangling in the Guggenheim when Brad Sherman, one of TerraCycle’s design junkies, told me about a chandelier he made of used eyeglasses. Although this project, and his bamboo-like picture frames made of cigarette butts, never made it to market, it says something about a company when even its failures can be mistaken for art.

Le Conseil général se lance dans la collecte des stylos usagés !Au total, ce sont 19 points de collecte mis en place sur le site de Marbot dont un à chaque accueil.

We recently moved into our newly redesigned offices and in the process managed to strike an interesting balance. Our goal was to embrace our growth from a basement start-up to a proper business with real revenue and an employee manual while still preserving what we think is special about our culture: excitement and out-of-the-box thinking. Here’s what we did. In the beginning, TerraCycle had a funky office environment because that was all we could afford. The walls were always painted in various bright colors — typically with rejected color mixes from local paint stores — and they were always covered with various art pieces we could find free, such as paintings from the local high school art department and various objects people thought fit to throw out. I was inspired to create such a space by Jim Budman, founder of Budman Studio. The concept behind Jim’s vision is to facilitate art and create an ever-changing and highly stimulating environment for creative thought. When I went to Princeton, I started spending weekends at his SoHo studio to escape our Milwaukee’s Best-drenched parties (this New York Times article from 2001 captures what those weekends were like.)

Atlanta (CNN) -- They say one man's trash is another man's treasure and for Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, that couldn't be more true. His New Jersey-based company is helping millions of people wise-up to waste recycling. But is was a wacky idea that got 29-year-old Szaky started. "My friends and I were trying to grow some plants and realized worm poop was one of the best fertilizers to feed them," Szaky said, "...and that suddenly started getting me to thinking differently about waste."

Broward College was recently selected as one of four finalists in a nationwide contest sponsored by TerraCycle. The contest challenged TerraCycle participants to design a TerraCycle waste collection station using discarded "upcycled" waste. Broward College students came up with the idea of creating a bin out of VHS tapes. BC's bin was selected as one of the 10 finalist. Now, the public will vote on a winner over the next couple weeks, ending October 27th. Please vote so Broward College can be named the Grand Prize Winner. All proceeds will help benefit the Michelle Lawless Environmental Science Scholarship Fund.

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Bethel Middle School in the Bryant (AK) School District outside of Little Rock takes soaring celings to the max, and keeps the building cool and airy. (Jackson Brown King Architects) The Bryant School District west of Little Rock, Arkansas, planted a green school, Bryant Middle School (above and below) and grew a corps of green-minded young people. The school’s green team attracted about 90 kids and they’ve made Bryant MS into a hub of recycling. Because the town does not offer curbside pick up, the 6th-8th graders undertook to provide it themselves. Each week they set up a drop off for paper, aluminum and plastic bottles outside their school, which they sort and send to a local recycler. Inside, they’re also manic about recycling, collecting snack wrappers, ink jet cartridges and other recyclables for TerraCycle, which pays them back a small sum. They also collected soda can pull tabs, which the Future Business Leaders of America collect for Ronald McDonald Houses.