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Firm using natural fertilizer, recycling to mount challenge to gardening giant

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 12/12/05

TRENTON — Tom Szaky is wearing what he calls his "greed hat," turning worm excrement into profit.

The 23-year-old Princeton University dropout set out to be a smart entrepreneur, not an environmental hero. His growing business is built on organic fertilizer made from worm feces, then bottled in recycled plastic bottles. TerraCycle markets plant fertilizer created by "vermicomposting" — harvesting worm excrement. It packages the product in 20-ounce plastic soft drink bottles, many gathered by schoolchildren. It employs 10 people in a warehouse in economically depressed Trenton.

Those business choices were born not of idealism but to maximize efficiency and keep costs down.

"We're in Trenton because the rent is very cheap and labor is abundant," Szaky said. "The decisions were made by wearing the greed hat . . . but ironically we're doing the right thing."

TerraCycle Plant Food has sold since early 2004 in organic groceries and independent garden shops, and earlier this year began appearing on shelves in Wal-Marts across Canada and Home Depots there and in New Jersey. Sales for 2005 are expected to clock in at about $500,000, and Szaky hopes to triple that next year with a planned launch in Home Depots and Wal-Marts across the U.S.

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