Next time you purchase a box of Capri Sun drinks, a tube of Colgate toothpaste, a Clif bar etc.. consider hanging on to your trash and sending it to Terracycle!

TerraCycle takes a wide range of different non-recyclable waste materials and then makes affordable, eco-friendly products. Terracycle is hoping to eliminate the idea of waste by finding innovative, unique uses for materials others deem garbage. With over 50 products available at major retailers like Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market, TerraCycle is one of the fastest growing eco-friendly manufacturers in the world.

Consider what happens when your kids finish drinking a Capri Sun…they toss the empty juice box in the trash which eventually ends up in a dumpster or landfill. Instead of adding the drink pouch to a pile of other pouches at the landfill, TerraCycle converts the used drink pouches into unique fashion bags, tote bags, pencil cases, and other items for kids and adults (check out the adorable Skittles bag below made from recycled Skittles wrappers)!

If you are inspired to join Terracycle and to help save the planet, here is what you need to do…

-Join the Terracycle community by clicking here (registration is FREE!)

-You will be asked to join a team or start a new team (you can sign up a school, girl/boy scout troop, business, neighborhood etc). You do NOT have to sign up as a team…you CAN join as an individual. Just select “other” from the organization type drop down menu and then fill in your name and personal address.

-Because Terracycle donates a certain amount for each piece of collected trash (i.e. $0.02 per drink pouch), you will need to select a charity to receive this donation (your charity can even be your local school!). You will have the option of choosing your own charity (you will need the charity name, mailing address, and phone #) or choosing from a charity already listed (i.e. Earth’s Birthday or The Nature Conservancy).

-Once the registration process has been completed, you will receive an email with an activation code that you will need to click on to activate your account.

-Log into your account and search through all of the active “trash brigades.” If you are interested in collecting a specific item, simply click on “start collecting.” You will then be able to read specific information about the “trash brigade” that you selected…if you are still interested, you will then need to click on “Join this brigade” at the bottom of the page. For example, I chose to join the cookie wrapper brigade (might as well do something will all those empty cookie wrappers, right ). With this particular brigade, you must collect at least 50 wrappers. Once you have 50 cookie wrappers, you pack them in an old box or bag that you have at home, affix the prepaid postage label that you print out at home* and drop it off at the nearest UPS location (yes, shipping is FREE so there is absolutely NO cost out of pocket!). For each wrapper that Terracycle receives, $0.02 will be paid to the non-profit organization of my choice (i.e. my son’s school). So cool!!

*Note: There are 2 ways to receive the mailing labels. You can download a shipping label to print immediately OR if you don’t have a printer available, you can have TerraCycle print physical labels and send them to you (it may be 5-10 business days before you receive your labels.).

To learn even more about Terracycle, check out this You Tube video found here.

So what do you guys think? Aren’t you inspired to join this incredible organization?! Let me know what your thoughts are.

(Thanks, Jarrod!)