Cheetos bags find new life as MP3 speakers

(Credit: TerraCycle)

A New Jersey-based environmental firm has developed audio player speakers made from recycled chips and candy bar packages.

TerraCycle is using its large waste-collection program to turn Doritos and Cheetos bags, as wells as Mars candy wrappers, into funky, foldable speakers.

The Frito-Lay Speakers have a 3.5 mm universal plug and don't require batteries. They sell at Radio Shack and on the TerraCycle Website, where they're listed for $19.99.

Founded by Princeton dropout Tom Szaky, TerraCycle "upcycles" waste into over 100 useful products, such as backpacks made from Capri Sun drink pouches, pencil cases made from Chips Ahoy wrappers, and kites made from Oreo cookie bags.

The company collects waste from groups across the country and donates money to charities for each item received. It aims to save thousands of tons of packaging from entering landfills each year.

[littleM]

They look PHAT-ening!

[Perry_Clease]

Pappa Chester is proud.

[jeeves86]

Well, you know what they say about one man's garbage. Awesome idea.

[drobosson]

Do they sound cheesey?

[ikramerica--2008]

They can't sound good...

But if you shake them over your mouth, do you get some of the yummy orange powder spilling out?

[nicmart]

Confirming the suspicion that environmentalism is an infantile disorder.

[aaron_van]

How is wanting to recycle an "infantile disorder"?

[Benfea]

aaron_van, he is one of those who believe that 90% of scientists from related fields and 90% of all scientists are part of a vast international conspiracy run by Al Gore. As near as I can tell, the purpose of this vast international conspiracy is to reduce the profits of American oil companies and American coal companies. Don't take people like nicmart any more seriously than you would take one of those chemtrails conspiracy people or those nutcases who believe in 9/11 conspiracies.

[jaguar717]

Actually, I think he was pointing out that this is more of a feel-good but inconsequential gesture than something with tangible results. They'll order a couple thousand empty Cheetos bags, ship them to their manufacturing facility, and spend a hundred-fold the resources turning them into speakers. Great PR, little effect.

As far as your little rant, do I really need to point out things like the fact that you don't get hundreds of billions in government grants to say something is *not* a crisis? That skeptics get their funding slashed, tenure denied, and their names left listed as "supporters" unless they sue to be removed? The data source nearly every report is based on being purged because they couldn't find an extra hard drive to throw it on? The past decade of cooling? How any observation is retroactively explained by global warming, such that there's nothing climate could do that wouldn't serve as "proof"?

What we have is a bunch of Command-and-Control politicians pushing doomsday garbage with the solution being a massive power grab for themselves and crushing taxes on anything that moves. FACTS are not subject to a vote; "scientific consensus" is an oxymoron. Every leap of progress in history has consisted of a lone blasphemer standing up to the status quo and being attacked endlessly until finally being proven correct by reality...

[Mr_fleabite]

@ jaguar717
Any sources or examples you can share for all of your facts?
Can you elaborate on observations being "retroactively explained by global warming"?

Totally unrelated to this article: IMHO religion pushes more doomsday garbage than anyone.

[Demolition]

Although it doesn't say anything on their website, I suspect that they must wash out these bags and wrappers before they turn them into speakers and other items. Otherwise, I can imagine what it would be like to be smelling rancid cheezies while listening to your iPod. :-)

[kieranmullen]

So do they cause more waste by collecting items nationwide and then washing them out? Also using more human labor that is needed?

[tektaktyks]

im going with All purpose fertilizer from liquefied worm poop - nature's premiere fertilizer - packaged in a used 20-ounce soda bottle.

http://www.terracycle.net/products/63-All-Purpose-Fertilizer

[William Crow]

If they can make a president out of an empty suit they can make speakers out of Cheetos bags.

[baconstang]

The bird brain speaks.

[swjslj]

They did a better job on the speakers. Occasionally they will actually say somethng that makes sense.

[swjslj]

They did a better job on the speakers. Occasionally they will say someithing that makes sense.

[baconstang]

Wanna try for 3?

[swjslj]

liberals are so rude...

[krosafcheg]

Then when the speakers break you throw away the bag again AND the speakers. pfffft.

[baconstang]

They might color the sound..... probably orange.

[Chuck McKnight]

Um, those speakers are not made from Cheetos bags. That would have been cool. As it is, these are just normal speakers (worth about a dollar each) that happen to be encased in Cheetos bags (worth about five cents each) to make a supposedly "green" product (now worth twenty bucks). This is nothing more than a scam to take money from people who want to "save the planet" without wanting to put any thought into it.

[YknJack]

SHhhhh! They think it's for the benefit of mankind's survival on a planet that would consider them nothing more than a common parasite. They will never understand it is just another way to procure a 'buck" out of their deep pockets.

[roundheadlight]

What about the packaging these (recycled packaging speakers) are sold in?

[lesbihonest17]

i hate mircosoft

[Mr_fleabite]

the Mac/ PC/ Microsoft flame war is in the other 50 articles.
common mistake, its only like 2 clicks away.

[jennytalia]

You might at least spell microsoft properly...........or was that your cunning plan all along.......blast.

[corelogik]

Absolutely ridiculous!

[ccmike72]

while these seem worthless I still think terracycle is doing some cool things. Keep trying guys.