This contest is now closed thank you to all that entered.

(Never had such a hard time giving away free stuff before, so far two winners have been chosen and emailed but no one emails me back with shipping address. I’ll try one more time to choose a winner. Thanks)

TerraCycle is offering a free back to school prize pack for one lucky Eco Child’s Play reader.

Would you like to win a TerraCycle Billboard Backpack, a Drink Pouch Lunch Box, a Drink Pouch Pencil Case, and a Chips Ahoy Notebook, for a retail value of around $55?

All you have to do is read through this post and leave a comment with your contact info to be entered in the contest.

In some respects, waste is immeasurable—it touches every aspect of your business, from the scrap paper that fills your waste bins to the fuel you use for business travel.

And while we know that that aiming for zero waste is a fast, cheap and effective strategy for combating climate change, its not always easy to do. You can’t find the resources, it involves trips here and there, its expensive. There are all sorts of obstacles. However, these six companies (some are actually non-profit organizations and government agencies) make recycling easy.

1. Earth911.org is an excellent site with good recycling information.  Their recycling search tool makes it easy to locate waste collectors and drop-off sites.  It covers resources for paper, metal, hazardous waste, plastic, glass, electronics, automotive, household, garden, and construction waste. Two of my favorite resources are: 1) a great list of manufacturer and retail take-back e-waste programs and 2) an awesome free widget for your website that can not only give your customers access to the world’s largest database of over 100,000 recycling locations, but can pre-populate recyclable materials search to fit your readers. For example, a blog focused on car care can auto-populate the widget to search for locations that accept used motor oil or car batteries.

2. LampRecycling.com is a new online resource for facilities that need a simple and cost-effective way to recycle their fluorescent bulbs, CFLs, batteries, ballasts, and electronic waste. These guys make it super easy to recycle. You can order recycling containers for multiple types of waste and return them via pre-paid FedEx. Once the waste has been received for recycling, a recurring order is triggered and a new EasyPak container is shipped out automatically. You can view recycling reports that give totals of all waste you have recycled and every time waste is recycled with EasyPak, you are issued a certificate of recycling that verifies your recycling efforts and details exactly how much waste was recycled.

In the past I’ve written about how you can save money by reducing the amount of paper you use and the 7 basics of green procurement (which includes defining office supplies standards). Now, let’s talk about basic office supplies that are great, green and cheap.

It’s easier to buy green office products than ever before. The three largest office supply retailers, Staples, Office Depot and Office Max each carry thousands of reasonably priced products with recycled content and other environmental attributes.

Some even innovate. Take Office Max, they were one of the first national retailers to carry TerraCycle products and they now sell a range of their products from notebooks made from used potato chip bags to juice pouch pencil cases.

There are also a number of green office suppliers online such as Green Line Paper.com, TheGreenOffice.com or Green Apple School Supply that offer thousands of eco-friendly products. And green promotional item companies like John Simonetta’s ProformaGreen.com and EcoPromotionsOnline.com are also good places to find green office supplies.

I found ten awesome green office supply products under $10 because no matter how small every single purchase has an impact on the environment. Whether you’re buying copy paper or forklifts, that purchasing decision is an environmental decision. So, if you want to start with some small stuff, basic office supplies are a great place to start.  Here are my favorite cheap, green office supplies:

#1. on my list is reasonably priced private-label recycled content copy paper from office supply retailers. A scan of websites today (July 2, 2009) revealed the following prices for a 10 ream case (5,000 sheets) of 30% PCW 20 lb. 8.5″ x 11′ copy paper:

Office Depot: $3.30/ream (for a limited time until stock lasts; regularly $4.00/ream)

Office Max: $4.00/ream

Staples: $4.10/ream

2. & 3. The TerraCycle E-Waste Recycling Can is made from 100% e-waste (such as crushed computers and fax machines) that would otherwise have ended up in landfills. It comes in both blue and green, holds 28 quarts and costs $9.99 (www.officemax.com).  For a more funky and slightly smaller version, the TerraCycle 12″ Urban Art Recycled Trash Bin (its that groovy one above) also costs $9.99 (ShopOnlyGreen.com).

You can collect Frito Lay chip bags, keep them out of landfills and send them to be remade into something useful all while earning money for your school or nonprofit organization.

TerraCycle has teamed up with Frito Lay to collect used packaging from FritoLay snack products- Doritos, Cheetos, Tostidos and other chip bags and turn them into affordable upcycled products- folders, tote bags, purses and pencil cases.

TerraCycle is best known for their garden products packaged in reused bottles and their recycled material fire starter logs.

Now they are expanding their selection of products made from waste to include rain barrels and composters made from discarded wooden wine barrels and cork boards made from used wine bottle corks. They’ve also expanded into making office products from various materials. The cork boards and other office products are available at Office Max stores.

“Garbage Moguls,” a new National Geographic show that premieres today, Earth Day, at 9 PM ET/PT, follows the team’s unorthodox creative process ― the brain-racking and stress, the silliness and infighting ―all working to build a profitable business with products composed entirely of trash.

Growing at an annualized rate of 6.3 percent for the past five years to 2008, Recycling Facilities is one of the few industries in the “green sector” to observe a decline. IBISWorld, an industry research firm tell us that recycling is expected to decline significantly in 2009 - after five years of strong growth.

The question for businesses used to be “Can we afford to go green?” Now it is ” Can we afford NOT to go green?” The upcoming Greener by Design 2009 conference, to be held May 19-20 in San Francisco will focus on helping industries learn to cut costs, create efficiency, and move towards sustainability through a series of focused hands-on innovation sessions, small-group consultative sessions, and demonstrations of new materials and tools.

Terracycle is one of my favorite eco-friendly companies, because they are the masters at upcycling.  From using plastic bottles to sell cleaners and fertilizers to making paper from banana peels and coffee leaves, Terracycle knows how to take green to the mainstream.  Their products are sold at major retailers, such as Home Depot, and they are affordable.

This Christmas, you can decorate with upcycled goods from Terracycle.  The Eco-Friendly Juice Pouch Tree Skirt is made from sewn together juice pouches.  At first glance, you may wonder why you would want such a thing under your tree, but it really does look nice, especially under a live tree.

It’s encouraging to see the increasingly wide assortment and availability of products made from recycled materials, but there’s a problem on the other end: A lot of things aren’t accepted for recycling by curbside collection services, at least not in the US.

As this recent article in Fast Company details, it’s not currently profitable for recyclers to take much beyond the most common, high volume items, like aluminum, paper, and a select few types of plastic. You can forget about candy and snack wrappers. Too many comingled materials, too difficult to create a consistent, usable result on the other end.

But, thanks to Terracycle and companies like mega food producer Kraft Foods teaming up, that’s changing, on a potentially huge scale.

Terracycle is most known for their reuse of plastic soda bottles as packaging for their Worm Poop gardening products. While these initial products are definitely to be commended, it’s their recent move into office and school products in conjunction with Office Max that stands to make an even more profound impact.

Many people spend a great deal of time working in offices, and to have a mainstream supplier actively promoting awareness about the value of using green office products will likely lead to many people that may not have previously found relevance in their lives to consider more deeply what they choose to purchase for their office, and perhaps other parts of their lives.

Why Office Max?

Why exactly did Terracycle, the scrappy company (literally, reusing scrap production waste in some products) decide to partner with the massive Office Max? Listen up green startups, this is important: They are able to go beyond their youthful  excitement about all things green, and hear from people with decades of experience what consumers are actually buying, where they want things to be greener, and where the most impact can be made. And, having a large, deeply ingrained distribution network, Office Max can also allow Terracycle to more confidently venture into making new products, with a sharply reduced time on the development cycle. This plus being able to produce larger numbers right away leads to  being able to keep their prices at an everyday level, so that a broad segment of the population can and will try them.

Review of  innovative green office products from Terracycle

So where does that lead Terracycle? It leads them to start with 7 new products, and have several more coming soon, including paper made from Mango leaves. More on that below. I had the pleasure of trying many of them out, and here’s what I found: