This Earth Month (why should it only be one day?), we’re highlighting the innovative people, places, and technologies paving the way to a more sustainable future. We’ll journey thousands of miles away and back to our own backyard to introduce you to the thought leaders making a serious mark on the eco-movement—and share how you can do the same. Get ready, get set, get inspired to go green.   No matter where you go in the world, as long as there are people, there will be trash. It's a sad reality that every quaint town and bustling city is dotted with sidewalk bins of crumpled wrappers, Dumpsters filled with food scraps, and forgotten bottles. Trash, it seems, is the great unifier, whether we like it or not. But what if it didn't have to be that way?   "People in the U.S. need the resources and the incentive to make separating their trash easy," explains Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of global waste reduction company TerraCycle. "Asking residents to separate their waste involves them in the waste management process. Understanding how different products and packaging fit into the current recycling infrastructure may help change the way people consume and buy."  

Consider the dirty diaper. Of course, most people would rather not. But consider that the used versions of incontinence products account for about 2 percent of the stuff that clogs American landfills, with 3.7 million tons dumped in 2010. If that seems like a problem, Tom Szaky’s company has a solution. Szaky, chief executive officer of Trenton, N.J.-based TerraCycle, spoke about his favorite subject – garbage – Dec. 6 at Upper St. Clair High School for the Town Hall South lecture series. He explained how TerraCycle scientists have developed a means to separate the artificial and organic materials, including the unpleasantries, and into either compost or plastic pellets to be repurposed for new consumer goods. “We are on a consumption fix. When we buy stuff, that is what causes every environmental issue in the world.” That’s just one example of the company’s mission: “Collecting and recycling things that could never be recycled before,” Szaky said. Cigarettes represent another, as all those discarded butts that smokers toss casually aside could be collected and used in an infinitely better manner. Hirsute and dressed casually, especially for Town Hall South, the 34-year-old Hungary native provided a simple societal reason for TerraCycle even to exist. “We are on a consumption fix,” he said. “When we buy stuff, that is what causes every environmental issue in the world.” As such, and flying in the face of the current seasonal spending spree, Szaky recommended that members of the capacity crowd consider buying durable instead of disposable goods, and to buy used items. “The very best thing, which I challenge you on, is to stop buying unless you really have to,” he said. Szaky told the audience about his first efforts on the road toward TerraCycle, when he was a student at Princeton University. He showed a slide depicting an impressive multilevel contraption designed to take food waste, feed it to worms and emerge with compost. “No one would invest in our idea,” he admitted. The next try worked better, packaging liquefied compost in discarded soda bottles as marketing them as TerraCycle Plant Food. Szaky said he promptly received letters from lawyers representing beverage companies, claiming infringement on intellectual property because of the bottles’ shapes, but he convinced them that his intentions were good. One multinational corporation, though, threatened a protracted legal battle, one that TerraCycle couldn’t afford. So the fledgling company went another route instead. “You don’t have to play on their playing field,” Szaky explained. “We decided to play this in the media rather than in the courtroom.” The result was plenty of positive coverage for TerraCycle and a corresponding boost in sales that helped pave the way toward stability and sustained growth. Today, the company is housed in a renovated 100,000-square-foot building, where artists around Trenton always are welcome to expressive their creativity by painting on the walls. Meanwhile, Szaky continues to laud the American business environment for giving him the opportunity to pursue an unconventional path. “This is a country where you can create ideas and take risks,” he said, “because without risk, you can’t innovate.” He also pointed to the entrepreneurial successes of immigrants like himself. “That’s important to remember, especially in today’s political climate.”

TerraCycle Inc. founder Tom Szaky sorts through a large box of marker pens in the company's Trenton, N.J., warehouse. Inspired by the company, a New Jersey lawmaker is calling for residents and businesses in the state to increase recycling efforts. (AP file photo) A New Jersey lawmaker wants residents and business to recycle more materials. Less than half of all the municipal waste generated in New Jersey is recycled, said Sen. Kip Bateman, R-Somerset. And innovative recycling techniques can keep a variety of materials from ending up in landfills and incinerators. That includes old toothbrushes, pens and pencils, and single-brew coffee pods, he said.

Don’t guess. If a prospect has a question you don’t know, it’s okay to say you have to check first. Here’s the tip from TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky, “If you don’t know the answer, do not guess: People will ask you tough questions, and you may not always know the answer. The person asking you may be testing you, knowing the answer full well. And if you fumble, it’s very hard to rebuild credibility. Do not guess.”

In addition to its traditional recycling and composting projects, TerraCycle, founded in 2001, engages in a practice it calls “upcycling”, whereby trash isn’t entirely melted down but rather reused and remade into sellable new forms. One example: children’s backpacks that are clearly created out of used Capri Sun beverage packages.

Tom Szaky, co-founder and CEO of TerraCycle, will be the keynote speaker for the Center for Sustainability (CfS) and Business Innovation Group’s 2016 Sustainability and Entrepreneur Lecture Series on Thursday, April 7 at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. Szaky’s company, TerraCycle, is an international leader in the collection and repurposing of post-consumer waste. On a yearly basis in more than 23 countries, the company collects and repurposes billions of pieces of waste. TerraCycle generates millions of dollars of donations for schools and charities in the process.

The global recycling infrastructure today is a mess. While countries like Austria and Germany boast recycling rates in excess of 60 per cent, other equally developed countries continue to lag far behind. The US, for instance, continues to suffer from the same stagnant recycling rates that have plagued it for years. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, from 2012 to 2013 the US’s recycling rate actually went down from 34.5 per cent to 34.3 per cent.

How do you get corporations to think about their footprint and have a positive impact on the environment in a way that still serves their own interest? Partner with them. The work that Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, is doing in this space is innovative and provides new lenses to evaluate and think about collaborative models to do good better.

                    DANBURY, Conn. — Tom Szaky possesses all the usual entrepreneurial traits — obsessive, innovative, smart — but he works in a business that few others do, and in the process he is creating a new intersection of industry, recycling and even art.Szaky’s company, TerraCycle, makes money by reusing products that are normally not recycled, but instead are thrown away and later buried, incinerated or left by the side of the road, including items like potato chip bags and cigarette butts.

What is "garbage"? A. Things you toss into trash bags then toss into trash bins. B. Things you aren't supposed to put in the blue recycling bins. C. Empty toothpaste tubes, shoes that no longer fit, extinguished cigarette butts, make-up containers, dairy tubs and lids, high lighters and pens, outdated cell phones & laptops. D. Almost everything. E. Almost nothing. F. D and E G. A through D Since the answer is assuredly "G," perhaps it is past time that we trash the idea of garbage before all of Mother Earth herself is trashed. "All the ants in the world weigh more than all the humans in the world, but ants create not a single pound of garbage," explains Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle; "that's because in Nature, one system's garbage is another system's food." Not so with humans in the equation. Szaky reports that "99 percent of the things we buy will be in the dump within one year." TerraCycle see's human garbage as an opportunity to make new products — products that are thereby cheaper and much more sustainable. One year ago, May of 2013, Coyote Howling Shop for a Cause launched a TerraCycle campaign that one year later has collected waste stream items to be TerraCycled from donors across New Mexico, as well as from Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. Together, donors have kept more than 1,380 pounds of trash from landfills and incinerators — protecting our land, water, and air. Starting with just two brigades — Personal Care and Beauty and Writing Instruments — the campaign has grown to more than 24 active brigades with another five waitlisted. During May to December 2013, volunteers shipped 23 boxes of items to TerraCycle. In the first 4 1/2 months of 2014, we have shipped 62 boxes. Some examples to date: • 8,385 personal care and beauty items • 17,610 units of cigarette waste • 5,049 pieces of cheese packaging • 4,900 cell phone points • 438 toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and floss containers • 1,186 plastic No. 6 cups • 136 pairs of shoes to be sent to under-resourced communities It would be enough of a reward to have kept these items from becoming garbage, but each item sent also earns a rebate that is sent directly from TerraCycle to Feed My Starving Children. More than 1,400 nutritional FMSC meals have been paid for by the rebates. Together we can trash the idea of "garbage" and "starvation"!