Transforming juice packs into tote bags (aka trash into treasure)

Egads, almost three years ago now, I wrote about a New Jersey company (woo-hoo, go Jersey!) called Terracycle that uses discarded stuff of all sorts -- discarded technology accessories, empty juice packs and so on -- to create stuff like flower pots and tote bags (like the ones pictured below).

I'm happy to report that the company seems to be doing just fine. In fact, Wal-Mart has just started carrying about 60 products as part of Earth Month. The company's products are already carried in Whole Foods, Target and Home Depot, to name a few. What's more, the company has teamed up with several very well-known consumer products companies that provide it with a source of raw materials including Kraft Foods, Frito Lay, Stonyfield Farm, Mars Wrigley and so on. When I first heard of Terracycle, it was working with Hewlett-Packard to convert some of its printer and imaging products into flower pots.

Here's how Terracycle does its thing:

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com