Kites constructed from Oreo cookie wrappers. Spiral notebooks made from old cereal boxes. Pencils from rolled newspaper.
How is it possible to run a successful American company and yet make all the merchandise out of trash?
TerraCycle, Inc., one of the coolest companies on the planet, is doing just that. This young, hip company just may be the only company in existence that produces products made entirely out of waste.
A new series, Garbage Moguls, recently premiered on National Geographic Channel, and follows the TerraCycle team’s unorthodox creative process ― the brain-racking and stress, the silliness and infighting ― while working to build a profitable business with products composed entirely of trash.
Since its inception, TerraCycle has saved over 70 million drink pouches, 10.5 million cookie wrappers, and 3.1 million plastic bottles from ending up in a landfill. TerraCycle’s eco-friendly, affordable products are available at major retailers nationwide. To date, the company has made Drink Pouch Backpacks, Clif Bar Backpacks, Juice Pouch Pencil Cases, Waste Wrapper Notebooks, Worm Poop Compost and recycled Newspaper Pencils.
“Garbage is a man-made idea, and we’ve created garbage because we haven’t created solutions for it,” explains CEO Tom Szaky, a 27-year-who got his eco-inspiration for TerraCycle as a Princeton freshman. “We take waste, we add design and produce mass merchandise.”
Once just a dorm-room operation, TerraCycle has grown from two employees to more than 50 and a multimillion-dollar venture that counts Wal-Mart, OfficeMax, The Home Depot and Target as clients.
Garbage Moguls follows the team while they work on two prototypes: a messenger bag for OfficeMax — made from old billboard materials and seat belts — and a kite made entirely of Oreo wrappers for Wal-Mart.
Visit: http://www.terracycle.net/
Show/Hide comment form
