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[GreenYes] A green way to make green stuff and save the world - Win-win!



All,

If you missed the CNN In The Money segment on Terracycle Inc last
weekend, below is a transcript. This company makes a product from
garbage and packages it in garbage - wonderful!

I am a member of their bottle brigade simply by placing the free
collection boxes they send in the break room at the elementary school.
When the box is full of plastic bottles I send it postage-paid back to
Freecycle, and they keep me posted on how many acres of rain forest our
school has saved. You can also make money for your school or favorite
charity with this program.

Check it out! http://www.terracycle.net

BTW, their fertilizer products are available in home improvement stores
nationwide, including Home Depot.

Why not get a collection box and place it at your school or business?
It's easy, it's free, and it's the right thing to do.

NMeyer

++++++++++++++++++++++
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Tom Szaky, landfills
are lands of wasted opportunity.

TOM SZAKY, FOUNDER & CEO, TERRACYCLE: Garbage is all opportunity.
Garbage is great, because it's stuff that you can do something with.

CHERNOFF: At age 24, he's the founder and CEO of Terracycle, a company
that makes organic plant fertilizer entirely from trash. His product is
made by feeding garbage to millions of worms. The worm's castings, or
feces, which are a natural, powerful fertilizer, are then filtered and
liquefied.

SZAKY: Brewing worm poo.

CHERNOFF: The final product is completely organic and costs less than
many chemical-based competitors.

The idea to mass produce the stuff came to Szaky at age 20 while he was
a student at Princeton University. Szaky and his best friend turned
business partner, John Vier (ph), drew up a business plan, forked over
their savings, maxed out credit cards, even borrowed their friends' bar
mitzvah money to get the company off the ground. SZAKY: Being 20 and
having a worm poop start-up, we still had no success raising any money
from any venture capitalist or anything like that.

CHERNOFF: Strapped for cash, Szaky and Vier needed a cheap packaging
solution.

SZAKY: Solutions at Terracycle have always come out of necessity.

CHERNOFF: The answer, package garbage in garbage. Terracycle bottles are
reused soda bottles, many actually collected by school children and
organizations all over the country. The spray tops are leftovers from
other companies. And the shipping boxes, other corporations' misprints.

In the two years that followed, Terracycle raised over $4 million from
private investors. And the plant food can now be found in the world's
largest retailer retailers, like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and CVS.

The company has recruited a team of experts. Many have more years of
industry experience than Szaky has had on the planet.

SZAKY: Everyone here knows more than I do about what they do. And I'm
more here just to challenge them and think differently.

CHERNOFF: And his youthful creativity permeates the whole office, from
the graffiti on the walls to the ex-dorm room furniture that, you
guessed it, was once garbage.

Szaky hopes his eco-friendly business model can set an example for other
companies. But it's not all sunshine and chlorophyll. Szaky admits
there's still room to grow. Purchasing more machines could seriously
speed up production.

SZAKY: I can't wait for the day we get our auto-tightening (ph) machine
for these tights.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please.

SZAKY: It will save some blisters.

CHERNOFF: Terracycle has yet to make a profit but expects to break even
by next year, with projected sales estimated at about $5 million.

As for the company's future...

SZAKY: The goal for Terracycle is to make $100 million business that's
based on ecocapitalism, where you can make lots of money and save the
world at the same time. And to do it in a really big way.

CHERNOFF: A pretty lofty goal, but if you buy into a business model
where trash is opportunity, the sources for success are practically
limitless.

Allan Chernoff, CNN.


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