Fundador e CEO da TerraCycle “Eu acho que um obstáculo é encontrar tempo para dar um passo para trás..."

TerraCycle, one of Trenton’s best home-grown business success stories of recent years, is getting the public offering it sought and is also getting a street named after it.

It’s a green shopper’s dream to curb plastic waste: Häagen-Dazs in stainless steel pints, Tropicana in glass bottles, Pantene in aluminium containers and hundreds more products all refillable and delivered to your door in what harkens back to the days of the milkman. But whereas the milkman would replenish your dairy on the spot, this pilot program, called Loop, would collect and clean your containers before scheduling the next service. Backing Loop are dozens of big name companies including PepsiCo and Nestlé, which announced their project at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in hopes that eco-conscious consumers are ready to deliver on their calls for eliminating single-use containers. New York, Paris and London will be the first cities to test the refillable brands.   But is the reusable market still too niche? How cost-effective would the rollout be and what unintended environmental impacts would need to be avoided, such as even more congested roads to keep up with delivery? More importantly — would you buy in? Call us at 866-893-5722 or comment below.   GUESTS: Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, a recycling firm and parent company for the pilot program Loop, which will handle the delivery, returns and cleaning for a number of companies testing refillable brands; he tweets @Tom__Szaky Susan Collins, head of the Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit focusing on research and education towards container recycling and deposit systems Kit Yarrow, consumer research psychologist, professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco and author of “Decoding the New Consumer Mind”

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), armed with an initial funding commitment of $1bn, has the potential to be a game changer for the polymers industry. No longer is it enough to educate the public on how plastic is fantastic – keeping food safe and fresh, lightweighting vehicles for fuel economy, and providing value and convenience for the masses. The industry finally recognises it’s time to act now to address the immediate problem of plastic waste in the environment and particularly in our oceans. Longer term, a big part of the solution will be recycling technology – improving the mechanical recycling we have today, and also developing chemical recycling which uses catalysts to transform waste plastics into useful chemical building blocks. The alliance will indeed invest in these new processes and technologies. But importantly, funds will go into the immediate heart of the problem, targeting clean-up, and waste collection and management near key rivers in South and Southeast Asia, where much of the leakage occurs. The alliance cites a 2017 study by the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ and the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences estimating that 90% of river borne plastic waste comes from 10 major rivers – eight in Asia, and two in Africa while 60% of the plastic waste in the ocean can be sourced to five countries in Southeast Asia. TACKLING POLLUTION AT THE SOURCE Here, clean-up is key to solving the immediate problem. It must be tackled at the source. “You’re going to see cities and rivers be the focus of a lot of the initial work of the alliance,” said Jim Fitterling, CEO of Dow, in a discussion of the alliance’s launch. Along these key rivers, people often use them or streams that lead into the rivers as a convenient way to dispose of household waste. And monsoons and floods can also take plastic waste from mismanaged landfills out to the ocean, Fitterling noted. “If we can tackle that at the source, we can stem that tide. And then we can start to develop the circular economy that brings, not only value from the plastic, but also social value to make people’s lives better,” he said. One of the key partners of the alliance is non-profit Renew Oceans, which will initially focus on the Ganges River in India. “It is estimated [the Ganges] contributes 1.2bn lb of plastic waste to the oceans each year, and there are 400m residents that live [in the area],” said Priyanka Bakaya, CEO and founder of Renew Oceans. Practically, this involves building fences to collect plastic waste as it flows down rivers, and most importantly, paying waste pickers to collect the plastic. “Once they see the value in those plastics, we’ll see less of those plastics in the environment,” said Bakaya. In one of Renew Ocean’s models, mobile stations are set up to collect unrecyclable plastics, to convert them into fuels such as diesel. Waste pickers receive compensation directly tied to the fuel generated from the plastic waste. If the Renew Oceans project in the Ganges is successful, it can be scaled to other regions of the world. DAVOS DISCUSSION The is widely being discussed at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland. In a panel discussion, participants suggested that packaging should be designed with the future in mind and that the recycling issue was tied to the lack of effective waste management as well as product design. “It all comes down to the economics of waste,” said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of post-consumer waste firm TerraCycle. “Consumers want things that are convenient and affordable.” COST OF DOING BUSINESS For the global polymers sector, which faces the threat of reduced long-term growth amid regulatory and consumer backlash, the success of the alliance will be critical. Chemical and plastics producers, among others in the coalition, committed to spend over $1bn, with a goal of boosting this to $1.5bn in five years to address the problem in a multi-pronged approach, including new technologies, processes and infrastructure, and education. And the challenge will be ongoing. No different than ensuring safety in operations, producers simply must view this as a cost of doing business.

Bajo el lema “todo se transforma”, la empresa TerraCycle dedica sus años de vida a la recolección y reconversión de desechos aparentemente no reciclables; para esta empresa, la basura no existe en la naturaleza, ésta es un concepto creado por la humanidad que hoy más que nunca debemos de eliminar.

Bajo el lema “todo se transforma”, la empresa TerraCycle dedica sus años de vida a la recolección y reconversión de desechos aparentemente no reciclables; para esta empresa, la basura no existe en la naturaleza, ésta es un concepto creado por la humanidad que hoy más que nunca debemos de eliminar.

El fundador de TerraCycle es Tom Szaky, un estadounidense que en su primer año universitario en Princeton, en el año 2001, comenzó a repartir fertilizantes orgánicos fecales con un alto número de gusanos. En el 2004 logró convencer de probar su producto a un empleado de la empresa Home Depot. Hoy sus productos se distribuyen masivamente en al menos 20 países.

宝洁公司全球可持续发展副总裁Virginie Helias说道：“作为全球头号洗洁精及英国备受推崇的品牌企业，我们希望利用Fairy品牌来提高人们对海洋污染以及回收重要性的认识。通过使用海洋回收塑料，我们的消费者目前非常关注这一问题，并希望我们在废旧塑料应用方面创造更多的机会。”   这款海洋回收塑料瓶是与回收专家Terra Cycle公司一起合作生产的，并将于2018年上市应用。宝洁公司表示，这次将在英国推出32万瓶，是迄今为止海洋回收塑料应用规模最大的一次。这款塑料瓶由10％海洋回收塑料（回收塑料由世界各地的海洋和沙滩收集而来）和90%的PCR塑料制成。   TerraCycle公司首席执行官Tom Szaky说道：“我们很高兴能够与驰名品牌Fairy合作推出由100%回收塑料和海洋塑料制成的可回收包装瓶。”海洋污染问题是一个中肯的问题，我们希望其他品牌能够创造性地思考包装废弃物，最终实现循环经济。   抑制塑料流入海洋对维持海洋健康至关重要。据埃伦·麦克阿瑟基金会（EMF）的数据显示，塑料包装材料每年市场值达到800亿美元至1200亿美元，但已经利用的却不足5%，造成极大的经济损失。按照目前的发展来看，截止2050年，废旧塑料可能比海洋中的鱼还要多（按重量计）。   据宝洁公司介绍，宝洁Fairy海洋回收塑料瓶，主要宗旨是扩大其他品牌和地区未来的主动权，公司将继续利用品牌的力量来鼓舞塑料回收。为了从填埋场和海洋中转移废旧的塑料垃圾，宝洁旗下品牌，包括Fairy，Dawn，Yes，Dreft和Joy，将继续转移垃圾填埋中的近9000吨塑料，并混合40%的PCR塑料，平均用于全球4.81亿个透明塑料瓶的生产中。据宝洁公司介绍，如果将这些瓶子堆放起来，其高度将达到珠穆朗玛峰高度的11 倍。

Projects by Coca-Cola, McCormick and Procter & Gamble led our top sustainable packaging articles of the year, with some of the highest page views of all stories posted this year on PackagingDigest.com. P&G partnered with TerraCycle and Suez, the largest waste management company in Europe, “to source, develop and put out the first fully recyclable shampoo bottle made from up to 25% beach plastic for the world’s #1 shampoo brand, Head & Shoulders,” says Tom Szaky, TerraCycle’s founder/CEO and article author.

本文作者TOM SZAKY是美国做回收利用、环保的TerraCycle公司的创始人及CEO。创建TerraCycle已是TOM SZAKY的第七次创业经历。2006年，TerraCycle被Inc.杂志评选为“全美最酷小型创业公司”，Tom也被评为“30岁以下，全美第一 CEO”。

在汤姆·绍基(Tom Szaky)的新经济愿景中，不存在任何垃圾。连烟头、脏的纸尿裤，甚至用过的卫生棉条，都不是垃圾。 绍基在新泽西创办了一家垃圾处理公司TerraCycle，其2400万美元的业务都建立在一个信念之上：一切皆可回收。他说服了一些全球最大的品牌和零售商，包括宝洁公司(Procter & Gamble Co.)、高露洁公司(Colgate-Palmolive Co.)及欧迪办公(Office Depot Inc.)，让他们相信花钱让垃圾远离填埋场是有价值的。 如今，他要寻找数百万计的支持者来完成一个更大的使命：把垃圾打造为一个循环经济中的明星，让重复利用将成为常态。受到过去送货上门的玻璃牛奶瓶的启发，他正在创造一个持久耐用的消费者回收系统。试想一下，将洗发水装在锃亮的不锈钢瓶子里，将冰激凌装在保温瓶式的容器里，将咖啡封存在金属杯而非塑料杯里——所有这些容器都可以被运走、清洁、解构，再重新使用。 绍基2017年35岁，他说一些重要品牌已经参与了进来。他会在世界经济论坛上推出相关产品，但不是2018年，而是2019年。在此之前，他要吁请有环保意识的社会大众的关注，并通过2017年12月的某种前期IPO(Pre-IPO)筹集最多2500万美元的资金。 对于私营企业投资者而言，一个风险在于，绍基预计至少在达沃斯发布会之前，产品的研发过程是亏本的，而发布会后，TerraCycle计划首先在纽约和巴黎销售这些产品。此外，该公司的商业模式相当复杂，而关键的推动者只有一位：绍基。他自称在营收方面自己总是“好高骛远”。公司2011年实现盈利以前，他曾受到公司内部资深员工的弹劾，但他撑了下来。 另外，通过环保挣来的钱还可以更环保一些。据绍基介绍，2016年公司的总收入为1940万美元，其中利润约50万美元。2017年预计收入2400万美元，利润稍低于100万美元。要提升这两个数字，绍基寄望于并购，以及其新的耐用包装平台Loop。 “我们赞美垃圾，”TerraCycle在提交给美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission)的备案文件中称，“并力求让垃圾变得好玩、激动人心，甚至性感起来。” 对绍基有利的一点是，如今，消费者和投资者们都要求减少碳足迹，企业也在为可持续发展投入更多资金。与此同时，购物者们又希望一切都能唾手可得……