I have been following Terracycle ever since I heard their founder and CEO, Tom Szaky, give an address at a NewImpact event about a year ago. Szaky has found ways to recycle lots of waste stuff, like candy wrappers of juice boxes, that was long considered to be unusable. The site lists 131 separate products available from the company, up from a couple of handfuls they offered when i first learned about them. Previously, wastes like this were considered to have insufficient value to merit separating them from the waste stream. Terracycle found a fascinating and brilliant (IMHO) strategy for solving the economic block. The organize campaigns for organizations like schools to collect the wastes, paying them a small amount for each item.

I got triggered by an story about a new line of products made out of discarded pens, markers, and other writing tools, coming soon. This project is a little different from the others in that the plastic recovered from the pens will be mixed with other wastes and turned into trash bins. Up to now, Szaky has made a big deal about turning the wastes into products of high value, upcycling the stuff. This project sounds a little like turning waste plastics in general into benches and lumber substitutes. Anyway, it's better to recycle things even into low-value products (downcycling) if they were going to end up in landfills. Take a trip to there site--very cleverly done--to see the full line of items and learn more about their model. Their story is really unique and worth a trip to the site to view one of the several videos that explain the company's philosophy and business strategy.