Question: What do you get when you mix a team of extremely creative geeks with a whole lot of trash?
Answer: Terracycle.
Paul Smith wrote a series of articles about Terracyle last year. Founded by Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer in 2001 while students at Princeton, Terra Cycle started as a way to spread the benefits of vermicomposting (that is, composting with worms) to a larger audience. Szaky and Beyer were eventually able to earn startup funds, and by 2004, Home Depot was carrying Terra Cycle Plant Food on their website.
Today the story has developed much further. The Terracyle team now visits landfills on a routine basis to collect whatever garbage they can find, for ultimate conversion into usable products. With computer bags made from billboards, pencils made from rolled newspaper and kites made from Oreo cookie wrappers, Terracycle now has regular sales appointments at major retailers like Office Max and Walmart.
In the words of Tom Szaky, this is a company that takes garbage, upcycles it into usable products and then sells it to the world’s biggest retailers.
“Garbage Moguls,” a new National Geographic show that premieres today, Earth Day, at 9 PM ET/PT, follows the team’s unorthodox creative process ― the brain-racking and stress, the silliness and infighting ―all working to build a profitable business with products composed entirely of trash.
A highly entertaining reality show, the crazy politics in “Garbage Moguls” lend it the semblance of something between a real live version of “The Office” and “The Apprentice” (only here everyone is working together rather than against each other). Even though all of their products are made from pure garbage that has been scavenged at America’s junkyards, the team is entirely serious about making sure that the prototypes work perfectly. Because if they don’t, then not only will they not be able to sell the product, but the whole company can go down too.
My favorite part of the show is “Go Fly A Kite” which shows how Terracycle’s team members scramble to put together a kite made out of oreo wrappers for a presentation to Walmart. What’s fascinating is that although the prototype was developed from wrappers collected at a junkyard, the company actually pays schools to collect cookie wrappers which Terracycle team members then wash clean at a local laundry! As with any product, presenting the prototype entails presenting a complete package with the pricing and the marketing plan. Indeed it makes for a whole lot of stress but once the orders come through, the ROI is well worth the effort!
Watch this clip from “Go Fly A Kite.”
Image credit: National Geographic
I am watchng the show now! It is great and I am going to tell everyone! One of the main reasons why we started our buisness, Planet Zero Gravity-Stainless Steel Water Bottles, is because of the unneccesary plastic pollution.
What a great concept and solution that Terracyle is offering by truly turning trash into eco-friendly useable treasures. This kind of company really creates green jobs and fosters creativity.
Thanks National Geographic for shows like this and Terracyle for your ingenuity!
http://www.planetzerogravity
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This show was stupid….. Can’t believe a group of young people didn’t think to get on the internet to find kite building information instead ran out to purchase and COPY a kite. Seemed the only person doing a “great” job was the girl sewing the backpack and oh yeah the kite as my husband said “if it wasn’t for her they wouldn’t sell anything she deserves a huge raise.” Also, the backpack could have been done much better the pockets added didn’t appeal at all so much more potential. I would also fire an employee not pulling his weight not just kid around and hug it out.
Cindi, my thoughts exactly. I was also disturbed by how much they did not seem to care about the environment. Everyone was running around with disposable coffee and dunken donuts cups. Calling the stuff they were making “garbage”.
It is also sad that they did not even document that they are truly fulfilling their mission — to keep hundreds of tons of garbage out of landfills. The only thing they documented is that they have delayed the entry of hundreds of tons of trash into landfills i.e. until the oreo wrapper kites and billboard bags with seatbelt clasps get thrown out into the trash.
This could be fixed if they designed their products to be completely recyclable themselves. As far as I saw, they did not say or show they were doing this.
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I think you would have better luck pelletizing plastic bottles for the trash can idea. Try shampoo, or mouth wash bottles, or even plastic deoderant containers. those should pelletize fairly easy. If you can get these things pelletized, you could sell the plastic pellets to plastic injection moulding companies. just know what kind of plastic it is: ex. poly urathane, or poly propolene. Just an idea.
Very clever; and much more respectable than most Jersey reality sleaze. Maybe Teresa Giudice can see if Szaky will throw her a couple of bucks for what’s left of her bankruptcy sale; or better yet, maybe Danielle Staub can take the fake hair that got ripped out of her head this season, and TerraCyle can turn it into something useful. We know Danielle is all about giving back to the community.
There is an irony Szaky, and that is, you can take trash in Jersey, and actually make it worth something. Too bad you can’t recycle people.
http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2010/08/welcome-to-the-new-reality-trash-show-garbage-moguls/