TerraCycle’s Design team is a dedicated department devoted to upcycling, also known as creative reuse. Conceptualizing upcycled products for brand sponsors, contest prizes, and DIY tips, the Design team has a flair for keeping ours offices looking freshly furnished, and spreading the word of reuse through the community. Earlier this year, we were exhibitors in TRASHED, a juried exhibition hosted by Artworks Trenton meant to educate the viewer about upcycling, and delaying and preventing the accumulation of solid waste through upcycling waste into art.

To properly recycle or dispose of such items, consumers must identify alternative recycling programs for the post-consumer waste. Thanks to our corporate sponsors, my company TerraCycle is able to administrate specialized recycling programs for common plastic items that are not accepted by the current infrastructure.

Bear Naked, a TerraCycle program sponsor and a Kashi sister brand, is a company that currently demonstrates itscommitment to sustainability by lowering the economic boundaries that prevent its packaging from being recycled. Similarly, QAI’s Certified Transitional program eases the uncertainty and economic boundaries preventing farmers from going organic in direct partnership with key brands.

A more regenerative system in which collected waste materials are used as a resource to create new products is what recycling is actually about. For example, years ago my company TerraCycle partnered with Garnier to create thePersonal Care and Beauty Recycling Program, a free program that accepts everything from shampoo and conditioner bottles, eye cream tubs and hair spray pumps for recycling. To enhance our recycling initiative’s impact, the program itself is brand agnostic: all personal care and beauty waste is accepted for recycling, regardless of brand.

Aside from reuse, what viable solutions for plastic bag waste are there? You—and most consumers—might be surprised to learn there are a couple other options, as TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky enlightens us.

One of TerraCycle’s longtime partners, MOM Brands (Malt-O-Meal Company), rejects the common cereal packaging setup, instead packaging its cereal brands in a re-sealable plastic bag that creates 75 percent less packaging waste than comparably sized cereal boxes. What’s more, MOM Brands’ cereal bags can be recycled through TerraCyclethrough its sponsored program, which also accepts plastic cereal box liners from conventional cereal packaging.

At TerraCycle, we have evaluated every type of consumer waste and have found that nothing is beyond recycling. Thanks to our many corporate partners, such as Colgate, Garnier and Brita, we have successfully recycled post-consumer product and packaging waste into new, wholly different products by deconstructing them into their component parts and giving the waste materials a second life.

At my company, TerraCycle, we wanted to know if it could also motivate people to reduce packaging waste. For years, we have used social media as a tool to help shift commonly held perceptions about product and packaging waste. Whether that means sharing pictures of “upcycled” art made with product packaging, promoting the sustainability efforts of a recent partner or sharing with our users intriguing “Eco-Facts” about their waste, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have given us a variety of platforms (and access to different audiences) to inspire change and motivate people to recycle traditionally difficult-to-recycle waste streams.

Waste reduction efforts were in full force this past Earth Month. My company TerraCycle, for example, worked with our longtime partners at Tom’s of Maine to help support theLess Waste Challenge. Throughout April, we challenged individuals through social media to reduce one pound of waste from their lives per week.

At my company, TerraCycle, we too have continually seen the value social media can bring to our partners’, and our own, sustainability and eco-activism efforts. Just this April, we worked with our longtime friends atTom’s of Maine to help support the Less Waste Challenge. This Earth Month social media campaign challenged Tom’s of Maine consumers and TerraCycle participants to reduce from their lives one pound of waste per week.