New Jersey company turning wrappers into school supplies
Thu, Jun 5, 2008
BY PETER DAININGAn innovative startup company is partnering with big brand names like Nabisco and Capri Sun to recycle wrappers and containers that would likely otherwise land in a dump.
New Jersey-based Terracycle then transforms the trash into make products like backpacks, pencil boxes and change purses.
"Terracycle has a unique opportunity to help larger companies to reduce their waste streams, while procuring zero cost materials to make eco-friendly products," said 25-year-old founder Tom Szaky, who dropped out of Princeton to launch Terracycle. "This idea ... benefits any large company with a nonrecyclable packaging and helps Terracycle provide consumers with affordably priced, eco-friendly products."
More than 7,300 businesses, schools and nonprofits across the country help Terracycle by collecting wrappers, containers and bottles. In return, the company donates a couple of cents per wrapper to the school or a charity chosen by the business.
Employees at Gazelle Sports in Holland collect energy bar wrappers to send to Terracycle. Kyle Klooster, the store's assistant manager who eats a Clif Bar each day, said Terracycle pays the shipping cost.
"Once I heard about it, I thought it would be a better idea to recycle them than throw them away," Klooster said.
Terracycle Marketing Director James Artis said big companies pay the operations costs, which gives the his company its raw material.
Even though Clif Bar is paying for 500 organizations to ship its wrappers to Terracycle, all foil wrappers are accepted.
Most businesses collect wrappers from products in their particular industry, so many bike shops and gyms are in the Clif Bar program.
U.S. Airborne, a gymnastics team in Cascade Township in Kent County, has been collecting wrappers for about two months. Team mom Val Mas said the team will collect 2 cents for each wrapper collected — they have less than 250 so far.
"Obviously, it's not about the money," Mas said. "We just started it to be environmentally responsible."
Artis said it seems like a lot of companies add 20 percent to the price when the word "organic" is in the title.
"We want to prove you can really be a good company that's not harming the environment and still turn a profit," he said. "We're changing the whole mindset of just doing business as usual."
Terracycle's first product was Worm Poop, a garden fertilizer that is made from 100-percent trash. Szaky didn't have the funding to pay for bottles at first, so he walked around Princeton's campus picking 20-ounce bottles out of trash cans. Worm Poop is still sold in those bottles.
The fertilizer's spray tops are other company's leftovers and the cardboard shipping boxes are other company's misprints.
The company now sells fertilizers, home cleaners, composting bin and other products at stores like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and OfficeMax. They sell reusable grocery bags, which are made out of plastic throw-away grocery bags, and other goods at Target stores.
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