Six months ago the folks at Target asked us to solve two problems. They wanted to solve the plastic bag problem and they wanted a new designer bag to sell. We solved them both simultaneously. Everyone knows how big the plastic bag problem is. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. Plastic bags don't biodegrade. Instead, they photo-degrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits that contaminate soil and waterways and enter the food web when animals accidentally ingest them. On top of this, it can cost up to $4,000 a ton to recycle plastic bags, and the resulting polymers are worth only a fraction of the cost, rendering the recycling of plastic bags economically unsustainable. Since legislated plastic bag collection exists only in select parts of California, the vast majority of plastic bags are discarded improperly.

Our entire "green" economic transition is based on carbon credits and global warming. Unfortunately that is ALL people seem to care about. While global warming is a crisis and is extremely important, it is only one aspect of the environmental dilemma that we find ourselves in. The challenge with basing everything off of any single individual matrix is that it cannot fully capture many important factors that contribute to the overall environmental crisis. For example, how does the carbon matrix deal with the pollution caused by toxic chemicals? The carbon footprint of dumping chemicals in a river may in fact be less than if you trucked them to a location where they could be safely disposed. Or how does carbon deal with garbage? Taking garbage to a landfill (as long as it doesn't result in methane production) may be the best thing to do from a carbon offset perspective. The examples could go on. How does carbon measure the loss of endangered species? the destruction of eco-systems through raw material harvesting? My fear is that if we educate everyone that a good environment = low carbon emissions and that everything else is secondary, we may solve the immediate global warming crisis -- but we will not address the macro issue of having a truly green economy. The reason that it is important to deal with this NOW is that this is the first time in our history that people are thinking about the environment seriously as a mainstream topic. The limelight will not last long. Our responsibility is to ensure that we take as much advantage of it as possible while it is shining strong. The solutions needs to be easy to understand and easy to administer. How do we change from the current ultimate solution being "no carbon footprint" to "no environmental footprint?"

With hundreds of authorities out there purporting to measure how green products actually are, how do we know the authenticity of a green product? What does "natural" mean? "Organic?" "Carbon neutral?" Is being carbon neutral even enough? I'm always asking this question: "On a scale of 1 to 100, how green is this product?" Well, why not create a scale that is regulated and required by law -- just like a calorie chart on our favorite food products? This would be a major step in the right direction. However, it would have to be government mandated so that it would appear on all consumer products and contain basic scores on: carbon impact, waste impact, toxicity, energy efficiency, labor practices used, etc.

I was recently asked that question by someone at Office Max (as a quick background we just launched a major partnership between TerraCycle and Office Max this week). This is a tough question because one of the conventional methods of maintaining market share is to block competition and to construct numerous barriers to entry -- from IP to exclusive partnerships, etc. This is definitely the case in a mature and stable market where it is challenging to grow the market.

Take a simple paradigm: plastic bottles. The cheapest way to make a plastic bottle is to use 100 percent virgin plastic (the worst thing for the environment). If you want a "greener" bottle, you can integrate some recycled content, but with every extra gram of recycled plastic, you will be increasing the price of that bottle (and decreasing its strength). If you wanted to go "uber green," you might use biodegradable plastic -- like Ethos water, which is available at your local Starbucks. That move would result in the most expensive way to make a plastic bottle today.

Businesses across America are facing increased pressure to go green. To face this challenge, many companies are attempting to find some way to do something green. But what does this actually mean? Is it a good thing? Or does it dilute authentic green innovation? What constitutes "green-washing"? And is green-washing a bad thing? Here are some recent examples I've seen:

Our entire "green" economic transition is based on carbon credits and global warming. Unfortunately that is ALL people seem to care about. While global warming is a crisis and is extremely important, it is only one aspect of the environmental dilemma that we find ourselves in. The challenge with basing everything off of any single individual matrix is that it cannot fully capture many important factors that contribute to the overall environmental crisis. For example, how does the carbon matrix deal with the pollution caused by toxic chemicals? The carbon footprint of dumping chemicals in a river may in fact be less than if you trucked them to a location where they could be safely disposed.

We are used to thinking of waste as a physical thing. For example, and most typically, what is thrown out in our garbage cans and ends up in landfills. But what is waste? If we define waste as anything that we are willing to pay to remove, then the idea of waste can be extended beyond the physical objects that end up in our garbage can.

My book, Revolution in a Bottle, hit the streets this week. It is a quick read that is meant to flow more like a novel, less like a business book. It follows the story of TerraCycle from our beginnings in my dorm room, shoveling maggot filled organic waste to creating products we sold to Wal-Mart and other major big box retailers, getting sued by Scotts and creating “sponsored waste” programs to upcycle branded waste. It also offers insights on how we approach media and pursue new opportunities. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction: