Consumers are steadily becoming more conscious of environmental issues, and more eager to reduce waste at home and work — but are these enough to translate into action? Moreover, will consumers pay to live up to ‘green’ standards and aspirations in their lives? The success my company, TerraCycle, is seeing with our Zero Waste Box platform seems to indicate that many are willing. Due to the economics of garbage, recycling traditionally difficult-to-recycle waste streams has always been a challenge for us. Overcoming those roadblocks was not easy, but we found a way through our ‘sponsored waste’ recycling programs. Consumer product companies such as Procter & Gamble and Colgate, and major brands such as Tom’s of Maine sponsor our recycling programs, allowing us to offer them to consumers, school groups, offices, and community organizations for free. People join a program; collect waste at home, at work or in their communities; print out a free shipping label and send the waste to TerraCycle for recycling.

My company, TerraCycle, has been at the forefront of recycling technology for over a decade. We develop recycling solutions for difficult-to-recycle waste streams: from water filters, toothbrushes and other products, to post-consumer packaging waste, chewed gum and cigarette butts. Thanks to our corporate sponsors, we offer recycling programs for these waste streams (among many others) to consumers, schools and other organizations at no cost, successfully avoiding the common economic barriers that prevent most waste streams on the planet from being recycled.

From zero waste supply chains, zero waste blogs, and products that facilitate a zero waste lifestyle, the concept of zero waste has taken the world by storm. But is zero waste actually an achievable goal? The fact is that there is no such thing as true zero waste. Even in a closed-loop system, waste is created in some capacity (e.g. emissions from transportation, energy wasted during the creation or repurposing of goods, etc).

Academies at Gerrard Berman Day School in Oakland is teaching students about sustainability while making a significant impact on the environment. Through use of TerraCycle programs and Zero Waste Boxes, the school helps turn waste, such as snack wrappers and old school supplies, into new plastic products. Academies at GBDS participates in TerraCycle’s free, national Brigade programs, recycling items such as Entenmann’s Little Bites packaging, Capri Sun drink pouches, Scotch tape dispensers and E-waste.

Last year, we asked TreeHugger readers if green-themed programming could make a comeback on mainstream television. We started the discussion on the heels of the premiere of TerraCycle’s newest show, Human Resources, a reality show on Pivot based out of our Trenton, New Jersey headquarters.

Introducing TerraCycle, a New Jersey based company founded in 2001 by a Princeton University freshman selling organic fertilizer in reused soda bottles.