Garbage Mogul
With his start-up eco-company TerraCycle,
Tom Szaky turns garbage into gold.
Garbage collection isn’t the typical go-to career for a young intellectual. Meet the
exception: Tom Szaky, 27, who dropped out of Princeton to turn mounds of trash
into piles of cash. He is the cofounder of TerraCycle, a company that turns waste
into products for the home and garden.
While Szaky cares deeply about the environment, he happily admits that he also
loves to make money. His company gives equal weight to saving the planet and
making giant profits—a rare combination in the business world.
In fact, TerraCycle turns the traditional manufacturing process on its head.
Instead of using virgin matter to make products that later become trash, the
company uses waste as its raw material, turning it into products from household
cleaners to office supplies—a process called upcycling. The company’s
flagship product, TerraCycle Plant Food, is made from food
waste, packaged in used soda bottles and shipped in
misprinted boxes dumped by other companies. “It
eliminates the very idea of garbage,” Szaky says.
It doesn’t get any greener than that.
The company’s approach is paying off, with
$6.5 million in sales in 2008 and twice that
anticipated for 2009. This year brings other big
changes, including expansion into Brazil and
England, the launch of a reality show called
Garbage Moguls on National Geographic
Channel, and the release of Szaky’s first book,
Revolution in a Bottle ($15; Portfolio Trade).
TerraCycle had humble beginnings. As a
Princeton student in 2001, Szaky took note
of a friend’s compost heap that used worms
to recycle food scraps into fertilizer. Where
others only saw poop, Szaky saw a way to build
a business while making a difference. Today,
TerraCycle partners with major brands such as
Nabisco and Frito-Lay, which pay to have their
products’ waste transformed into sellable items.
Empty Capri Sun pouches become tote bags,
and misprinted Oreo wrappers are turned into
notebooks. More business for TerraCycle means
less waste in landfills.
“I could do this for my whole career,” Szaky
says. “It’s so infinite. I’d only quit if I got bored,
and I just don’t see how I could at this point.”
TRASH TALK
Want to get involved in
TerraCycle’s mission to
eliminate the notion of
trash? Here are three ways.
1.
Szaky challenges ReadyMade
readers to dream up new ways
to remake trash. “If they come
up with a product, we’ll take it
seriously,” he says. Send your
ideas to editor@readymade
.com. The winner will receive a
Terra Cycle goody bag.
2.
TerraCycle’s various trash-collection brigades pay
consumers for corks, wrappers,
soda bottles, and pouches.
Sign up and TerraCycle will
either direct you to a nearby
collection center or send you a
free shipping box or bag. Visit
terracycle.net and click “Our
Revolution” and then “Collect
Wa ste for .”
Nabisco and TerraCycle’s
Cookie Wrapper Brigade
keeps packaging out of
land lls and upcycles it into
cool products like this Oreo
Messenger bag. $15
3.
Buy the company’s upcycled
products at big-box retailers
including The Home Depot,
O ceMax, Wal-Mart, and Target.
Visit terracycle.net to nd a
