Manufacturing products out of waste can be an environmentally beneficial business practice, Tom Szaky, chief executive officer and cofounder of TerraCycle Inc., said Sept. 22 at Packer Memorial Church.

TerraCycle prides itself on being "the world's first consumer product line that is not only made completely from waste but is also packaged in waste," Szaky said.

In his lecture, 'From Shoveling Shit to a Million-Dollar Business,' Szaky spoke of the evolution of his waste management business.

When Szaky was very young he started three small dot com companies.

"[They] showed me every way you could screw up a business," Szaky said.

Szaky and his co-founder, Jon Beyer, got the idea for TerraCycle from a friend who grew plants by feeding worm feces to them.

In the interest of negative cost capitalism, Szaky and Beyer decided to feed the worms that no one else wanted - waste.

They decided to focus on making the best possible product.

Although they knew their project would be successful, they did not have the money to make it happen.

"I had just dropped out of Princeton and wasn't the most likely person for someone to invest a million dollars in," Szaky said.

With no investors, Szaky and Beyer maxed out their credit cards and began to shovel 1,000 pounds of postconsumer food waste a day.

Szaky said postconsumer food waste is "probably the worst possible food waste you could deal with."

Szaky said that despite working long days shoveling waste, he and his partner still did not have much money and were forced to sleep on the floor of someone else's dorm room.

Szaky and Beyer were close to losing hope.

"We were ready to eBay off our entire system," Szaky said.

After he and his partner discussed their product concept on a radio show, someone finally expressed an interest and invested $2,000.

When the $2,000 investment ran out two months later, Szaky and his partner entered business plan contests. After winning seven small contests, Szaky won a contest that offered a $1 million investment.

Although Szaky and his partner had only $500 in the bank, they were forced to refuse the money after being asked to change their company to normal organic farming with no waste.

Having turned down the money, Szaky said they were left with a good fertilizer but no way to package it. They began to use soda bottles to solve their packaging problems.

Szaky said that their initial method of collecting soda bottles did not last for long.

"Apparently it's illegal to go through people's recycling containers ... I had no idea," Szaky said.

TerraCycle now runs various school-wide recycling fundraisers, mostly in New Jersey, to help collect soda bottles.

Szaky said that eco-friendly products are usually more expensive because it costs more to manufacture and only 5 percent of Americans will pay the extra money.

"For most people, when you're all alone, no peer pressure around you, your wallet makes the decisions," Szaky said.

Szaky said he believes in utilizing waste and that one should rarely have to pay for things.

"You should never, ever have to pay for furniture," Szaky said, before describing how most businesses throw out all of their furniture when they renovate.

"We get paid for our waste," Szaky said. "People drop off their waste and leave a check."

TerraCycle, based on a "negative cost paradigm," is able to make a more eco-friendly product at a lower price. Szaky described their product as, "two cents cheaper, 30 percent better."

Humanities Center Director Gordon Bearn said he found the lecture inspirational.

"Just as weeds are the other side of flowers, so too waste is the other side of efficiency," Bearn said. "All the things which are good and might be successful in his story come true."

The lecture was the first in a series sponsored by the Humanities Center that will focus on waste.