When it comes to eco-mindedness, throwing anything away can be an anxiety riddled experience.  Every product is rigorously analyzed guaranteeing the trashcan is the only option.  In steps Tom Szaky, an innovate man with an earth changing idea, Sponsored Waste. Tom Szaky started TerraCycle in 2001 as a Princeton University freshman, with the hopes of winning the Princeton Business Plan Contest.  His idea was to address the environmental issue of trash by using worms to eat organic waste thus producing fertilizer.

With TerraCycle, one person's trash is another person's eco-friendly retail product. The brainchild of a 19-year-old Princeton University freshman in 2001, TerraCycle uses a wide variety of non-recyclable items to make more than 50 diverse products that are sold at major retailers, including Target, The Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Office Max, Whole Foods Market and Petco.

A set of New Jersey Wal-Mart parking lots now have a way to turn consumer product waste into profits. (Well, a little pocket change, anyway.)  Terracycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  has installed what they call "Store Collection Systems," a 20-foot trailer that accepts all kinds of packaging that can't be recycled in the normal blue bin outside your house. Then they take the mostly plastic waste—like Elmer’s glue bottles, toothpaste tubes, Capri Sun drink pouches—and turn them into products to resell in stores and online. They make mostly bags, pouches and coolers, but a few other items like picture frames and fertilizer, too.

Other things such as juice pouches and potato chip packages are collected and sent to Terracycle, a company which promotes a way to help “outsmart waste.” Items from Terracycle include fence partitions made from “up-cycled” drink pouches, insulated coolers made from candy wrappers, and recycling bins made from recycled plastics. Backpacks and shower curtains also are made from the recycled trash the school kids are sending in. These things can be found at stores including Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot, said Galvan.

One company is making a big impact with their innovative initiative to find a practical use for nearly all commercial packaging waste. TerraCycle <http://www.terracycle.net/>  not only encourages recycling through their upcycling brigades, where consumers are paid for their waste, but they turn said waste into valuable products! These products are then sold at major retailers nationwide, such as WalMart, Target, Petco, and Whole Foods.

Lovell J. Honiss School's Honiss Environmental Club in Dumont and the Berkley Street School in New Milford are participating in the TerraCycle Brigades, a trash-to-cash collection contest, sponsored by Walmart and TerraCycle, that will reward the top-collecting New Jersey public schools with $125,000 in grants.

Before those Halloween candy wrappers end up in the trash, you may want to know about a free way to give them a second life as purses, kites and other items. TerraCycle, a company that makes products from non-recyclable waste materials, has partnered with Mars/Wrigley and Cadbury for the "Candy Wrapper Brigade." It collects the wrappers and upcycles them into products. It's organized many such brigades and sells more than 50 items at major retailers such as Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market.

Lovell J. Holniss School's Honiss Environmental Club in Dumont and the Berkley Street School in New Milford ar participating in the TerraCycle Brigades, a trash-to-cash collection contest, sponsored by Walmart and TerrraCycle, that will reward the top-collecting New Jersey public schools with $125,000 in grants.

Yesterday I bought a bag of M&Ms. I know that sounds exciting, right? Well, when I got home, I noticed that on the back of the bag there was an infinity sign and the name Terracycle.  Next to that it says, "Mars is turning used candy wrappers into eco-friendly products," and gives the website terracycle.net <http://terracycle.net/> . I proceeded and checked out the website.

.”  After the students empty the pouches and remove the straw, Mrs. Janis slits the bottom, rinses them out with water (to discourage “critters” while the pouches await shipment) and dries them, usually on her clothesline.  “I am old-school enough to have two at my home.” Then they are sorted, counted and packaged in boxes for free shipment to TerraCycle in New Jersey. This upstart company, founded by a Princeton graduate, takes this waste and “upcyles” them into cool new products, like juice pouch pencil bags, tote bags, backpacks, and lunchboxes. More importantly, they reward nonprofits with approximately two cents for each pouch they collect.