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.

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.

Why aren’t you doing anything eco with the packaging [the wrappers or the cardboard display boxes]?

Well, first of all, the packaging foil—what the condom is actually in—is regulated by FDA. You can’t do anything green there, really.

You could work with Terracycle to collect condom foil wrappers. Foil is valuable resource, totally recyclable or reusable, terracycle could make backpacks out of condoms. Don’t tell me with your awesome design some teenage punks wouldn’t love toting a condom backpack to school, pissing off the teachers. Plus, it’s free marketing.

The second grade students at Bonner Elementary School in Phoebe Bradberry, Amanda Kirkman, Wendy Bradberry, and Sloan Dills’ classes recently worked hard to earn money for the Summerville Miracle League. They found an awesome company named Terracycle that reuses empty juice pouches and chip bags to create new school supplies such as pencil pouches, book bags, lunch boxes, and folders. Juice pouches are made out of aluminum and pouches and chip bags are laminated with a plastic layer, which make them non-recyclable. This program still benefits the earth because it is preventing these items from piling up in the landfills.