Why not 'upcycle' what you can't recycle?

No matter how good your company's intentions when it comes to recycling as many items as possible to keep them out of landfills, there are some common office items that CANNOT currently be sent to recyclers. Stuff you might find in your desk drawer like pens, highlighter, glue sticks.

That's why TerraCycle, which makes products made out of things like this, is turning up the heat on what it calls its Office Product Brigades program. The initiative collects at least some of these things, earning your business a bit of a charitable deduction along the way.

Here's the pitch: For every writing implement, tape dispenser or glue bottle you return (regardless of the brand), TerraCycle will donate 2 cents to the charity of your choice. TerraCycle will pick up the shipping costs for boxes of whatever you send in.

The clipboard to the right is an example of the sorts of things that TerraCycle makes out of what you send in. (The item in question happens to be made out of old circuit boards.)

TerraCycle's partners in the Office Products Brigades program are 3M, Elmer's Products, Papermaete, Sharpie and Scotch Tape. (Although as I mentioned before, it doesn't matter what kind of stuff you turn in.)

Even BEFORE this program was launched, TerraCycle has collected more than 250,000 pens, markers, glue bottles, spent tape dispensers and such from landfills.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com