We've blogged about TerraCycle before but they're continuing to make headlines. If you're unfamiliar with TerraCycle, they donate cash to charities in exchange for your cigarette butts, razors, expired pills, plastic food wrappers, etc, find new uses for them, and sell those products for a profit. See how they're doing all this while turning an enormous profit, after the jump.
TerraCycle already has their trash collecting and recycling operations in six countries and plans to launch in 11 more. TerraCycle is currently a $40 million company but owner Tom Szaky hopes they can become the "Google of garbage", according to an article in the Telegraph.
For instance, if you head to the Terra Cycle you will see that they are always actively seeking to develop “brigades”. These are groups that commit to collecting very specific materials such as candy wrappers, drink pouches, or soda bottles. <
http://www.gogreenitems.com/Recycled_Handbags_Eco_Friendly_Purses_at_Go_Green_Items_s/146.htm> The group that collects and submits the materials will get paid for each item (usually around two cents each) and will even be able to enjoy free shipping on each package they submit.
This means that a classroom, school, or neighborhood might get together to “harvest” every juice pouch used by the kids. These are quickly rinsed, flattened and submitted to the upcycling group, and then a check or contribution is made in return for their efforts. It is a win-win scenario and comes with plenty of rewards apart from the money.
NADA ES BASURA, TERRACYCLE, Luis Ricardo Soto Carrillo, gerente general de TerraCycle, en entrevista con Mi Ambiente, comentó que esta empresa es de nivel internacional y tiene presencia en México desde hace casi un año.
For Tom Szaky, it started with a dream, the environmentalist itch, and a little weed. Fast-forward to a decade later, and it’s clear that Szaky (silent ‘s’) has come a long way.
As a Princeton University freshman in 2001, Szarky was shocked at how much waste he saw on the Ivy League campus. Not just the lack of recycling opportunities, but also the waste of food in cafeterias and the overall loss of resources. That, combined with a fall break trip to Montreal where he learned about using worm compost to grow better pot, and an idea was born.
Szaky is now the founder of Terracycle <
http://www.terracycle.net> . The company “makes affordable, eco-friendly products from a wide range of different non-recyclable waste materials.”
“When you think of a really powerful group in the community, you have got to think about our middle school students,” Berryman said. “They’re a powerful group that makes a difference in our community and in the climate of our community and building.”
Four of the eighth students –– Paige Bartkowiak, Sara Wortmann, Kourtney Koch and Amelia Sadler –– led their class with service hours. Bartkowiak clocked in with 150 hours to qualify for the Presidential Service Award and 175 total hours. Wortmann recorded 100 presidential service hours and 120 total hours. Koch had 100 presidential service hours and 119 total hours. Sadler recorded 150 presidential service hours and 167 total hours.
Bartkowiak said the hours fill up quickly.
“You don’t have to do huge projects,” she said. “You just do a little bit here and there.”
Bartkowiak along with Wortmann and Koch helped organize a bottle recycling project and a partnership with TerraCycle at the middle school as part of their Girl Scout service to the community.
TerraCycle’s All-Natural Liquid Worm Poop Garden Fertilizer is by far the greenest way to green your garden. Guided by TerraCycle’s mandate to eliminate waste, this fertilizer is both made from and packaged in it. Worm tailings are harvested from organic-waste fed worms and packaged in reused plastic pop bottles collected by Bottle Brigades. The Brigades, made up of community groups from across North America, receive $0.05 in exchange for each container, supporting local fundraising initiatives and diverting waste. The result: a potent fertilizer with environmental and social benefits.
Tom Szaky wants to be the rag-and-bone man to the world, collecting the rubbish no one else wants - cigarette butts, razors, expired pills and plastic food wrappers - and turning an enormous profit by finding new uses for it.
His US-based company TerraCycle already has rubbish collecting and recycling operations in six countries and expects to launch in 11 more (including Japan, Australia and Sweden) in the next year. He launched TerraCycle in Britain last September and in Ireland this month.
'We're just a $40 million company at the moment,' he says. But he plans to become the Google of garbage. 'A billion-dollar company doesn't seem that big? why not!'
“We hope to wake up one day and become the new version of recycling, where every waste stream has a solution within the TerraCycle system.”
It all started with worms. When fed organic waste, worm ‘tea’ is produced through their excrement. One man began to bottle this concoction into used soda bottles as a natural plant food, by taking food scraps from the disposal bin at Princeton Dining Services.
That man was Tom Szaky. By the next summer, Tom met his first investor, and TerraCycle was born. As sales of the natural plant food grew, Tom began looking for new ways to reuse. His company began to take the items that nobody else wanted, cigarette butts, toothbrushes, juice cartons, expired pills and food wrappers, and explore ways or reusing anything and everything that was available.
“‘We want to be the recycling solution for everything that’s not recyclable today,’ Tom says, ‘But we don’t have all the answers yet.
This skin care brand—which is a subsidy of Johnson & Johnson — encourages customers to recycle their packages or upcycle others (that can’t be recycled) by sending them to TerraCycle, a company that collects the used bottles and turns them into tote bags.
Tom Szaky wants to be the rag-and-bone man to the world, collecting the rubbish no one else wants – cigarette butts, razors, expired pills and plastic food wrappers – and turning an enormous profit by finding new uses for it.
His US-based company TerraCycle already has rubbish collecting and recycling operations in six countries and expects to launch in 11 more (including Japan, Australia and Sweden) in the next year. He launched TerraCycle in Britain last September and in Ireland this month.
'We’re just a $40 million company at the moment,’ he says. But he plans to become the Google of garbage. 'A billion-dollar company doesn’t seem that big… why not!’
