It took 65 pounds of weight before tearing (!) and contained sharp branches and other detritus admirably, with only three punctures, half as many as the other two bags. It didn't fare as well on abrasion, but it held up pricewise with the other two, at $17 for 30 bags. And since it's recycled, your conscience can feel a little better about whatever horrible things you're stuffing inside. [Popular Mechanics]

Lame jokes aside, TerraCycle actually has a decent little business plan going on. Put simply, they recycle the world's garbage into electronics, bags and other knick knacks, and sell them on the cheap.

These Frito-Lay Cheeto speakers, for example, sell at Radio Shack for $20. They won't melt your face, but I can see them finding a comfortable home on the desk of some college undergrad. [TerraCycle via CNET]

Here's how it works, in terms that you may or may not understand:

The flash memory used on today's SSDs is comprised of cells that usually contain 4KB pages that are arranged in blocks of 512KB. When a cell is unused, data can be written to it relatively quickly. But if a cell already contains some data—no matter how little, even if it fills only a single page in the block—the entire block must be re-written.

In layman terms, that means that the way many SSDs write data is sloppy, and leaves all kinds of useless junk all over the place, which later causes slowdowns when it is needlessly rewritten. OCZ has a firmware update that apparently fixes this while the drive is idle, and HotHardware says it's actually worth a nice little performance boost. So congratulations, OCZ SSD owners! Even better news?

Virtually all SSD manufacturers have incorporated, or soon will incorporate, garbage collection schemes into their drives' firmware that actively seek out and remove the garbage data.

All this before most people have even used these things. [HotHardware via Engadget]

Case in point—math teacher and rugby coach Scott Williams was recently crushed to death when he fell asleep in an industrial garbage bin in Brighton, UK. His body was discovered more than 24 hours later by sanitation workers.

Seems like an open and shut case, but I still have to wonder whether or not the Boozy Shredder was involved somehow. Then again, could someone else be to blame? [The Argus via Fark]

The Minus Frozen Garbage Container is a concept device designed to keep the sink down by holding your garbage at below-freezing temperatures. Sure, you could just empty the trash more frequently, but wouldn't you rather spend a lot more money and use up a lot more energy? Of course you would. [Yanko Design via Ubergizmo]

Created by three Malaysian university students, there's currently only photos available of the TCR, so how well this thing actually functions remains to be seen.

Aesthetic gripes aside, what the TCR will someday do is pretty cool. Using ultrasonic sensors, it can search far and wide for any loose pieces of garbage, then, using a dual pair of conveyor belts, pick the rubbish up and deposit it into its back. A sound sensor is used to issue voice commands and a light sensor is used to detect colors. Right now, the bot is only able to classify red-colored balls as trash and blue-colored balls (heh) as not trash.

Simplistic, sure. But like I said, the road to the future happens in baby steps. [TCR-2009 via Gizmo Watch via Dvice]

The All-In-One recycling center has an 8-gallon bin for cans and bottles and a 5-gallon bin for newspaper and junkmail. There's a foot-activated can crusher that automatically drops the compressed rubbish into the bin, and a carbon filter in the lid to contain odors. In addition, the front of the unit has an LCD screen which reminds you what day the recycling comes.

But the price? An overblown $250 dollars. My inefficient and inadequate recycling habits will have to do for now. [Brookstone and Williams-Sonoma via Red Ferret via BB Gadgets]

If you have ever lived in an urban environment, chances are you see some pretty interesting stuff just sitting there waiting to be hauled off to its landfill doom. Let us know about what you found. [Objectified]

Gasification is the use of heat to transform solid biomass, or other carbonaceous solids, into a synthetic "natural gas like" flammable fuel. Through gasification, we can convert nearly any solid dry organic matter into a clean burning, carbon neutral, gaseous fuel. Whether starting with wood chips or walnut shells, construction debris or agricultural waste, the end product is a flexible gaseous fuel you can burn in your internal combustion engine, cooking stove, furnace or flamethrower. Or in this case, your DeLorean. OK, how about a Honda Accord?

Gasifiers are nothing new, but this instructable teaches you how to build a small scale version powerful enough to run your car. Since we are talking about dry organic matter here, I suppose banana peels and beer are out—but fueling up on pinecones is still better than paying for gas. Hit the link for a complete set of instructions. [Instructables via DVICE]

Residents can use the oven to cook hot meals or make hot water for washing. The system's added benefit is that it reduces waste in the area, a problem that has gotten so bad that it is beginning to destroy Kenya's plains.

Recognized as the first of its kind, the concept has caught on quickly, and plans for 20 more are already in the works. As people are increasingly drawn to urban areas, excess waste is rapidly becoming a critical problem. There are still some obvious kinks to be worked out, such as containing the fumes from the burning garbage.

The oven was built with the help of a $10,000 grant from the United Nations Environment Programme. Advocates of the oven hope that the technology works well enough to be employed in large cities everywhere. [Christian Science Monitor via Treehugger]

And who could forget all those other, wildly entertaining Star Wars gadgets, like the Yoda backpack and full-size StormTrooper suits? Don't forget my personal favorite, the MacBook Pro turned into a light saber. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [ThinkGeek via I4U News]

Scientists develop portable generator that turns trash into electricity [Via SCI FI]