This year, Tom Szaky, CEO of the company has written a book entitled Revolution in a Bottle, (Penguin Group) which outlines the tumultuous path his company has endured to redefine green business.
Opening with a chapter titled Up to My Neck, the author recounts his days in a Princeton University dorm room where he and his friend Jon Beyer witnessed a classmate feeding food scraps to a box of worms. The worms were fed in exchange for their castings, which are loaded with abundant nutrients to support plant health and growth. The next summer Szaky, Beyer and pals took all of the Princeton Dining Services waste and processed them in their prototype ‘Worm Gin.’
“Things quickly went from bad to worse,” laments Szaky. Clogging wood chipper, brewed sludge, police arrest for stealing garbage, maggot breeding, working in the rain at night at the dumpster amongst rancid odors, and employees who puked and quit on the spot. But by the end of the summer, they had miraculously perfected their processing and found their first investor.
TerraCycle Named one of the 100 Most Innovative Companies
Most recently, TerraCycle has been named one of the 100 most innovative companies by Red Herring magazine and has been awarded the Environmental Stewardship Award from Home Depot Canada. In 2006, an Inc. magazine cover story called TerraCycle “The coolest little Startup in America.”
Though it started out bottling worm poop fertilizer, TerraCycle today is hoping to churn out a new ‘upcycled’ product a week by transforming garbage into viable products. “Why can’t everything be made from waste?,” asks Szaky. “I’m looking at waste as an entirely modern, man-made idea. I stopped viewing garbage as garbage and instead slowly started to see it as a commodity.”
Consumers Want to 'Buy Green'
According to the book, Americans generate about one ton of garbage each year per person or 250 million tons together. So much waste has been tossed into the oceans that there is an accumulation of floating plastics the size of Texas slowly drifting in the Pacific, says Szaky. He argues that eco-friendly businesses have to match the prices of their mainstream competition. Most consumers are eager to “buy green” but not if it costs too much.
Revolution in a Bottle is just the right amount of entertainment, education and even suspense, to keep you reading on, even if it’s just to see how Szaky’s going to keep the company afloat when he’s down to his last 500 dollars in the bank and being sued for millions from a giant competitor.
'Garbage Moguls' Airs on TV
In April 2009, National Geographic launched a new series called Garbage Moguls. It follows Szaky and his colleagues, documentary style, as they approach multi-national corporations such as Wal-Mart with kites made of cookie wrappers or OfficeMax with computer bags made from billboards. Hundreds of tons of nonrecyclable materials are then kept from ending up in landfills.
TerraCycle is presently collecting candy wrappers, soda bottles, drink pouches and various other types of packaging to be recycled into other products. A school or church or organization can sign on to receive $.02 cents for each one collected as a donation to the group. The company will send collection bags delivered right to your door. To find out more visit TerraCycle Brigades.
TerraCycle products can be found at Home Depot, Lowes, Target, Office Max and Urban Outfitters. All TerraCycle products can be purchased online as well.
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