14 DAY TRIAL // New eco-friendly 32 gallons garbage cans are made out of recycled chip bags and scraps of rubber elastic trimming leftovers, from the disposable diapers' production.
The promoters of this kind of recycling are the same that made MP3s out of Cheetos bags, a New Jersey-based recycling company named TerraCycle.
They teamed up with Pioneer Plastics USA to recycle polypropylene that was once chip bags, and turn it into heavy-duty trash cans, for each garbage can being necessary about 500 chip bags.
About 80 percent of the material is recycled plastic from chip bags collected through TerraCycle's Chip Bag Brigade program, and the remaining 20 percent comes from disposable diapers leftovers.
The manufacturing process is rather simple: chip bags are first shredded and then run through a densifying machine that turns them into a solid material.
The material is then pressed out into plastic pellets, than can be made into trash cans through injection molding.
The company carried out several environmental studies which showed that using old chip bags to make trash cans reduces the CO2 emissions by 40 percent compared to virgin plastic.
The provisional name for the recycled can is The Garbage Garbage Can, and the company hopes to start marketing it early 2011, in home improvement stores.
TerraCycle was founded by Princeton dropout Tom Szaky back in 2001, and has now more than 180 recycled products, that include weird picture frames made out of old bicycle chains, circuit board desk clocks and fences made out of drink pouches.
The company collects waste from millions of people and also donates money to charity for each item they sell, cnet news reports.
The suggested retail price for this new recycled 32-gallon garbage can with a lid will be $20.
The trash can was presented on the National Geographic Channel's “Garbage Moguls” show, on Saturday, from 8pm to 11pm.