TERRACYCLE NEWS

ELIMINATING THE IDEA OF WASTE®

The Five Takeaways of Waste: Tom Szaky

The words “waste” and “garbage” have always had such negative connotations.  “You’re a waste of space.”  Schoolyard taunts about smelling like a garbage picker.  The phrase “garbage in, garbage out,” which refers to something made with low quality materials that will also yield a low quality final product. Tom Szaky, the 28 year old CEO of Terracycle, sees waste differently.  While he has brought garbage into his company, it seems that the outputs have been nothing short of valuable.  Szaky started Terracycle as a 19 year old Princeton student.  His idea?  Taking food waste from Princeton’s cafeterias, having worms digest it, and producing fertilizer on the other end.  The products were contained in old soda bottles.  After nearly going broke, he was helped out by an investor, which led to the company getting orders into two major retailers.

Getting Orchids to Rebloom

The Terracycle fertilizers caught my eye on Gardeners.com. They are packaged in recycled soda bottles, first of all. The fertilizers are made from worm poop. These worms are fed an all natural, organic diet. It doesn’t smell at all and is safe to use. I bought the All-Purpose Fertilizer and Orchid Fertilizer and have been using both with success. They are $7.95 each.

Turning trash into school cash

It looked like a cleaner form of dumpster diving as fifth graders at San Clemente's Truman Benedict Elementary School gathered juice pouches and chip bags from two big recycling bins. While other students played handball just yards away, the fifth graders boxed up trash that would soon be turned into backpacks, kites and other products. The process is called upcycling and it's part of a new Orange County Department of Education initiative to encourage schools to reduce waste. Schools across the county have been recycling for years, but the new Project Zero Waste OC initiative aims to pump up the volume on those programs, said Lori Kiesser, a Department of Education representative.

Artículos del mes

Presentarán el 'Primer Programa de Reutilización de Empaques en México' promovido por Kraft Foods México y su marca Tang en alianza con TerraCycle, compañía estadounidense encargada de la reutilización de empaques usados para transformarlos en productos económicos y amigables para el medio ambiente.

Recycling effort a big hit

Pennsbury In a continuing efforts to "go green" at Makefield Elementary School, students and teachers have been working extra hard to recycle. Led by teacher Roberta Stafford, the Recycling Club's goal is to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible. The kids spend time each week collecting water bottles, soda cans, paper, cardboard and composted scraps from the cafeteria. The school has also shipped more than 3,200 Capri Sun packages, 100 Kashi packages and 75 chip bags to TerraCycle, a company that reuses packaging to make new products such as book bags that are sold at major retailers.

Young Eco Designer 2010 - A Special Interview With Ben Fogle

The winner’s family will also win a trip to New York to visit the headquarters of recycling company TerraCycle where they will have the chance to see their winning design turned into reality. As part of the campaign, Ben will also be taking part in a national ‘roadshow’ (stopping off at Chester Zoo and Longleat Park along the way) to encourage as many kids and their families to take part from the local area.

Garbage Gold

So, you've picked all the low-hanging eco-fruit. You've changed out your light bulbs and done a variety of home energy saving retrofits. You've put in tap aerators and shortened your showers. You walk and ride your bike instead of drive as much as you can. You've even started using the clothesline in your laundry room to cut your dryer use by two-thirds...now what? Go eco-shopping to celebrate. Here are thre great products that you can use to "pitch in."

TerraCycle’s Best Practices For Growing Green Revenue

TerraCycle produces very cool consumer products from recycled food packaging. But for businesses trying to grow revenues in this “soft recovery” the coolest thing about TerraCycle is its creative business strategies for generating top-line revenue results with attractive profit margins. How it engage its customers is what makes TerraCycle’s strategy unique. For example, it “up-cycles” Capri Sun wrappers to create products like pencil holders that target the very school children who are the principal consumers of Capri Sun juices. Its customer engagement program involves encouraging school children to collect the wrappers as a fund raiser for their school and a path for learning about recycling. Beyond this being a brilliant social marketing example it also makes money. From a production-cycle perspective, TerraCycle takes a zero-cost waste stream and converts it into a product with attractive margins.