On Tuesday, May 15th from 2-3PM ET, Gather will host a live chat with Tom Szaky, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of TerraCycle, Inc. His company is the creator ofTerraCycle Plant Food™, an all-natural, all-organic, 'goof-proof' liquid plant food made from waste (worm poop) and packaged in waste (reused soda bottles).
TerraCycle was founded in the fall of 2001 in a Princeton University dorm room -- 82 Blair Hall to be exact. The idea was simple: take waste, process it, and turn it into a useful product. In May of 2004 The Home Depot began selling TerraCycle Plant Food™ on their website. In 2005, TerraCycle continued their growth as Whole Foods, Home Depot Canada, Wal*Mart Canada, Wild Oats and Do-It-Best began carrying the TerraCycle line.
Most recently, TerraCycle has been named one of the 100 most innovative companies by Red Herring magazine and been awarded the Environmental Stewardship Award from Home Depot Canada. In 2006, TerraCycle Plant Food™ has become the first consumer product to earn the right to carry the Zerofootprint™ seal. The seal signifies that the materials and manufacturing process used to produce a product have virtually no negative environmental repercussions.
But with success in the market comes added pressures. In March 2007, TerraCycle was sued by Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, a $2.2 billion company that dominates 59% of the market. To learn more about this David and Goliath battle and the product itself, be sure to join the chat which will take place in this article.
If you can't make it to the chat, please leave a comment or question for Tom Szaky.
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Comments: 66
Theoretically we could get paid to take away food waste from restaurants and get paid for the worm poop. Plus worms will work for free if you give them a cool dark area and lots of premium organic waste
How did you end up hooking up with the folks at Sundance Channel for tonight's episode of The Green?
Towns around here often charge companies to have a recycle pickup program in place. The only Big Idea I can think of is sending out a memo and getting others to recycle their bottles too.
I'd love some tips on what to do...I think it's a shame that we don't recycle at all.
And in some cases it varies from county to county here within California. This is true for certain types of paints and other weather protecting applications.
The Big Idea I have for gardening is to share my veggies with others (my pride and joy) and to tell them you don't have to use Miracle Grow and other harsh chemicals to get good results!
Thanks Tom!
2. False Advertising claims. We say that our products out preform "synthetic fertilizerts" We have never said Scotts or Miracle Gro. We are refusing to give up our scientific studies to support these claims as Scotts demanded. But who in their right mind would give proprietary information to your biggest competitor? We do have the studies and when court ordered will gladly turn them over. Check out www.suedbyscotts.com for the full 177 PAGE (!) complaint and other cool comparisons between the companies.
For example we have a Firelog in development made from wax and old cardboard and packaged in old newspaper. Also Drain Cleaner made from natural microbes and packaged in olg 1 liter bottles or planting pots made from recycled car parts made into a composite plastic and hand painted by innercity graffiti artists! All these products will be sold in 2008! And 20 more are in development!
I would hope this will go away quickly, because if they were to win it would set a precedent, I think. For example, then someone could sue because their packaging was in the same size and shape container as another competing product.
I have no doubt that advertisers hired by products go to great lengths to be different so their product stands out, but I also think this is partially why we have so much waste, as everything then becomes a new larger and improved product, when little has changed except the size of the contatiner and the price, with more to be recycled.
As for giving up your proprietary information, of course, that would not be in your best interests. As we know many companies try to emulate products unsuccessfully, because they don't have and are not given the secret formula "so to speak" of the competing product. And this goes for anything - food, organic fertilizers, etc.
That leads me to ask if you discern which is the best waste material for the worms to recycle for you? You have mentioned table scraps and paper. Are most of the table scraps organic to begin with?
It's myths and misinformation like this that make some people less likely to go green.