TerraCycle: A new way to think about trash

So, traditionally when we think about reusing trash we think about recycling; a process that can be loosely described as taking trash in the form of a bottle, paper, bag, etc. and creating a new bottle, paper, or bag down the road. Well, a young entrepreneur/Princeton drop-out has become very successful by getting even more creative and more eco-friendly with his re-use of trash.

Tom Szaky and his co-founder Jon Beyer started their creative trash concept, now called TerraCycle, with worm poop…that’s right worm poop. As the story goes, some of their friends were finding incredible gardening success using worms to breakdown organic food waste and create nutrient rich soil. Tom and Jon saw this as a great opportunity: take worms and trash and create a plant fertilizer…so they did. Better yet, they didn’t have enough money to buy plastic bottles so they ended up raiding people’s trash and bottling their fertilizer in used plastic bottles. To make a short story even shorter (They just started in 2001), you can now find their plant fertilizer along with a plethora of other great products in stores you have all heard of right here in DC: Home Depot and Target are just a few.

Now, the story doesn’t end with plant fertilizers. As TerraCycle evolved over the past few years, Tom and Jon realized that they could make almost anything from trash. This expanded level of thinking opened up a pandora’s box of possibilities which has materialized into creating backpacks out of Oreo wrappers, pencil cases out of Capri-Sun pouches, and rain barrels out of oak wine barrels. All of these products are available at www.terracycle.net.

As if that is not enough, they are now paying people like you and me to send them our used Capri-Sun pouches and Frito-Lay bags so they can continue creating innovative products out of our trash. If you don’t feel like sending them your trash you can also deposit a variety of items at any local Home Depot in their new TerraCycle drop boxes. Intrigued? Check out the website www.terracycle.net and Tom Szaky’s new book Revolution in a Bottle. Let’s get DC involved in this new great way to re-use our trash!

Photo Credit: CC-licensed by Flickr user zappowbang