TerraCycle is an inspired company that began with the simple concept of eliminating everyday waste. Ten years ago, emboldened by this idea of “outsmarting waste,” Princeton student Tom Szaky started selling cartons of worm casting in plastic bottles. Now, a decade after its humble humus-based beginnings, TerraCycle is a multimillion dollar company with a global waste recycling program that turns common trash items into products like purses and swing sets. In partnership with companies such as Kraft and Nabisco, Tom has seemingly done the impossible— he has gotten some of the biggest corporations in the world to sponsor the upcycling and recycling of their own trash.
Here’s how it works: Everyday people throw away consumer packaging and other odds and ends that could easily be reused and recycled into something else. TerraCycle works by providing the means for anyone to collect and recycle these products. Schools, neighborhoods, or even individuals can sign up for a “Brigade,” or recognized cotillion of trash collectors. Each Brigade is provided with Collection Kits for goods like juice pouches and yogurt cups. Once their kit is full, a Brigade sends the box back to TerraCycle, earning money to donate towards the charity of their choice. From there, TerraCycle takes each waste item and upcycles or recycles them into products like kites, backpacks, and benches. These products are available online and from retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, and Wholefoods, thus bringing the whole circle back around. The same juice pouch purchased from Wal-Mart the previous year can now sit on the self as a CD case.
With the wide variety of individual-size packaging for food products, creating a portable lunch that will please youngsters’ tastebuds is easier than ever. However, it also causes more waste, which leads to fuller wastebaskets, and eventually, fuller landfills.
That’s where the program TerraCycle comes in. The company, headquartered in New Jersey, collects difficult-to-recycle food packaging and turns it into extra money for schools.
Three area schools currently are participating in this program: Bad Axe Elementary, Owendale-Gagetown Area Schools and Our Lady of Lake Huron Catholic School in Harbor Beach.
I posted in my first blog about some of the cool jobs and internships I have been fortunate to have. I wanted to take the time and talk about my most previous internship in the business development department at TerraCycle this past summer. I moved out to Trenton, New Jersey to work for a company that is simply eliminating the idea of waste. CEO Tom Szaky, from his book Revolution in a Bottle, says it best that “in looking at waste as an entirely modern, man-made idea, I stopped viewing garbage as garbage and instead slowly started to see it as a commodity.” The private company’s goal is to engage consumers and communities in the collection of non-recyclable waste, things that you ordinarily cannot throw away into a recycling bin. Through a collection process, or Brigade™, consumers can send in their used products to TerraCycle where they will transform the waste into eco-products. They also incentivize the collections by rewarding consumers with $0.02 per item to a charity or school of their choice. This is able to close an environmental loop for brand’s consumers, and help them realize that there is an end of life decision for all the products they are using.
From corks, cameras, cell phones, any sort of packaging, pre-consumer waste, shoes, diapers, energy bars, pens to yogurt containers, TerraCycle handles them all. They are very proud to say that they have not yet encountered a form of waste in which they can’t handle. Also, the whole Trenton office is upcycled featured conference rooms made from bottle walls and reclaimed doors used for desks (the office was voted the “Coolest in America.”). Some of their more successful products can be found in Walmart and the Home Depot like the Capri Sun backpack and the garbage cans made from 1,500 Frito-Lay bags. Next time you’re at the grocery store, be sure to look at the back of a Capri Sun box!
As students headed back to class this fall in dozens of area schools, they were reminded to think twice before dumping the remains of their school lunch in the trash. The schools- more than 50 of them in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin Counties- are partnering with TerraCycle, a national "upcycling" and recycling company which comes up with creative ways to reuse non-recyclable or hard to recycle waste.
It seems like all we hear about these days is the “go green” movement. We are all told to drive hybrid cars, recycle and use paper — not plastic. In addition to this movement, the Virginia Tech Equestrian Team has joined the movement by collecting our food wrappers?
The Equestrian Team has joined a brigade through a company called Terracycle. Terracycle is a relatively new company that aims to create bags, purses, kites, picture frames and backpacks, almost anything you can imagine out of old food wrappers. It’s really not as weird as you may think, and the products end up looking quirky and cute.
Terracycle devotes its work to “upcycle” traditionally non-recyclable products and create usable items. The company statement claims that the products “keep waste out of landfills and contribute to a cleaner world.” It may seem a little far-fetched, but it’s amazing how one small movement can make such a large impact.
Some of the products are available at major retailers such as Target and Walmart, while the entirety of its products are available to buy online. You also have the opportunity to buy either a pre-made product or to “create your own.” In creating your own product, you or your specific organization can choose the item you want to create, and then learn about the wrappers you need to collect. Different products are made with different types of wrappers, and these wrappers are then mailed to Terracycle which then upcycles the wrappers into various products.
One of my most recent recycling dilemmas involved glue and tape. I have two little girls who love to create what they call “masterpieces,” which usually involves paper, paint, markers, crayons, colored pencils, glue and/or tape. Unfortunately, my local recycling program does not accept empty glue sticks or tape dispensers for recycling.
Recently, however, I found a company that will help me recycle my glue containers: Elmer’s Glue. The company, which began in 1947, started its recycling program for schools on Earth Day 2011.
Terracycle is a company that collects and "upcycles" different kinds of waste packaging and turns that waste into new consumer products.
Repurposed products include pencil cases made from Oreo cookie wrappers, kites from Skittles packages, backpacks from Capri Sun drinks pouches and natural plant fertilizer made from worm excrement that is packaged in empty soda bottles. These upcycled products are available for sale in several large national chain stores including Home Depot, Walmart and Wholefoods Markets.
So far, Terracycle has collected over 1.5 billion tons of waste. In Lays potato chip packets alone, over two million tons of waste has been diverted from landfills.
Though the tactics for reaching the audiences often needs to be different, it’s still most effective and efficient – you reach the mostpeople – when you combine audiences and catch everyone at once. The hard part, of course, is finding this middle ground. What will inspire and impact children and adults alike, without confusing one group or boring the other.
At TerraCycle, we’ve found that one of the best ways to do this is to put green lessons where they’re least expected. For us, this means retailers and playgrounds. By placing bins in stores like Old Navy and by partnering with stores such as Target and Walmart, which cater to both adults and children, we can catch the attention of both groups. Many people don’t expect to see backpacks made from Capri Sun drink pouches on the shelves – drink pouches belong in the food section! These items often get an equal gasp from parents and children alike, albeit for likely differing reasons.
