Something astounding happened recently. A crumpling bag caused a company to crumple up years of effort and commitment to a green packaging innovation and toss it in the bin. Yes, the much touted fully compostable bag for SunChips was released this year, with high expectations and many other companies paying close attention. And what happened? People complained about, of all things, that the packaging was, wait for it…Noisy.

Terracycle has always been a company with a trashy reputation, what with our reusing everything from soda bottles to Ziploc bags. Millions of people have been collecting these things, and we've made them into all manner of products. But that wasn't enough. We decided it's time to turn our upcycling expertise (okay, gregarious bumbling!) on ourselves: Nearly every bit of our office interior is now made from upcycled materials. And we wanted you to be among the first to see it. You hear about countertops and surfaces being made from recycling glass and other such things. But how about turning a door on its side, and making it a desk? Great, now how to hold it up? We found an interesting source: Some of our material comes directly from companies: outdated packaging, etc. The core of these big rolls of sheets of material have got great legs to stand on. Stacks of kitty litter buckets also serve as a sturdy foundation.

If you’re a green company, should you likewise have a green office? Some would say it depends on how public facing your company is, how curious your customers are, and how much they care. Others would say that no matter how visible the “behind the curtain” aspects of your company are to the rest of the world, having a work environment that walks the talk just as much as the rest of your company and its offerings do is a crucial thing.

A frequent topic of conversation among business’s big thinkers is the importance of connecting with and more effectively engaging consumers. But how can you connect retailers, manufacturers and consumers with each other, simultaneously? It may have begun now, in the shape of a converted trailer now residing in 6 Wal-Marts.

As you may know, TerraCycle partners with the public in what we call Brigades to collect everything from wine corks to Sharpie pens, and most famously, Capri Sun juice packs. Each piece collected earns 2 cents donated to the charitable organization or school of people's choice. Astoundingly, we just reached $1 million paid to Drink Pouch brigaders! That's 50 million pouches. To put that in perspective, those pouches collectively weigh as much as 75 Hummers, stacked they'd be as tall as 807 Mount Everests, and laid out would cover 2x the size of our home state of New Jersey. All of that, not going to landfills, but instead being made into products whose useful life will last much longer than how long it took to drink the juice out of those pouches. And that's just 1 of 26 things we collect, making 186 products out of them. But what's even more amazing is the speed of which collection is happening is increasing.

Reality shows have taken over television, like a virus or a breath of fresh air, depending on your perspective. And we're about to add to that mix with Garbage Moguls. But first, I'd like to pay homage to Planet Green. Love it or lump it, it has done more, earlier than any other media outlet to bring green thinking, living and acting to the masses. Rather than consign green minded TV to the dusty DVD collections of hippies low budget environmentalist skewed programs, Planet Green took the lead to make it appealing, useful, relevant and yes, sexy. Nothing wrong with a little sex appeal to grease the gears, I say! Alter Eco is a prime example. Adrian Grenier (of Entourage fame) has proven to be a visible, committed advocate of living greener, and this show sees him with a team of people doing both lifestyle and home makeovers. Sure, for some of you that's eye roll inducing. For many others, it speaks their language and gets them in the conversation, which is the point here.

When I first started Terracycle, I spent a lot of my time explaining what upcycling was. It was this foreign concept whose name wasn't on a lot of people's radar. Now, a handful of years later, more than 10 million people are collecting the brand specific waste that we've used to make a range of products; it has become increasingly common and may some day be as conventional as recycling. Currently, several startups are building their business around upcycled products and major corporations are including upcycling in their operations and products. Corona is even using it as both an environmental awareness bringer and marketing tool, building pop up hotels at famous beaches from the waste collected there! As upcycling grows, so do the Terracycle collection Brigades. Our newest with Colgate, giving toothbrushes and and toothpaste tubes a life beyond the waste bin, is nearly full after two months of starting. 2000 spots used to take a year or more. Whether it's because people are anxious to do something different with their waste or because the incentive of easily raising funds for your children's school or favorite organization is appealing in these cash starved times, it's clear that upcycling has arrived. We're testing out various reuses, but so far we've made toothbrush holders, shave kits and make up cases from Colgate products.

I’ve been at the green business game for while now, and I’m happy to see consumers getting smarter, and a wider range of people being aware of and seeking out greener options, not only in special things but the everyday as well. But there’s a problem. A big one that could, and I feel is, threatening the vitality of the market for sustainable goods:

We are on a race to nowhere. Consumption drives our economy (watch www.storyofstuff.com to see why). We measure our success by consumption (how much we spend). Global consumption is equal to the cumulative GDP of all countries or the world economy. If we don't increase consumption and grow our economies every year, we deem ourselves in stagnation. We all seem to be tied to consumption. We work hard to earn money so that we can buy stuff to feel good. Yes, innovation is important and we need to replace things with better versions, but why do we need to have more things than the generation before? And by our own "buying in" to these patterns, what messages are we passing on to those who follow? Even more concerning is our trend away from durable products and toward more disposable products. On a personal level, even though I am deeply aware of the issue, I find it hard to consume only what I absolutely need. I'm single and have two cars, create garbage, buy more than I need etc. and sadly in relation to the "average" I'm consuming less per person than the average person in America.

It seems not a day goes by when you hear about school budgets being radically cut, or even closed, and as a result the educational future of our next generation in uncertainty, lacking in depth & breadth. Theater, music, even the always preserved sports are being left to the side, in favor of focusing on how to train good test takers, to better secure funding. Where in this is environmental education? In most cases, non existent. This is a problem—How can we expect the children of today to be capable stewards of our troubled planet when they don't have the basic knowledge of what's going on, what their role is, and what they can do? That's why I'm really proud to have launched the free TerraCycle Curriculum, with a lot of help from the preeminent sustainability education designer Cloud Institute. What is it? Well let me start with what it's not: Another rehashing of the basics of, let's face it, how to be a "better consumer." Don't get me wrong, of course I'm in support of more people making greener purchase choices, recycling, using CFLs, etc. But that's being covered everywhere you look these days, in all manner of media.