TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky plans to sell his product
in Home Depots and Wal-Marts nationwide this
year.
By Associated Press Published
January 3, 2006
TRENTON, N.J. - Tom Szaky is wearing what he calls his
"greed hat," turning worm excrement into profit.
The 23-year-old Princeton 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.
The company, TerraCycle, markets plant fertilizer created
by "vermicomposting" - harvesting worm excrement. It sells 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," said Szaky (pronounced SAH-kee). "The decisions
were made by wearing the greed hat ... but ironically we're
doing the right thing."
TerraCycle Plant Food has sold for about $7 since early
2004 in organic groceries and independent garden shops, and in
2004 began appearing on shelves in Wal-Marts across Canada and
Home Depots there and in New Jersey. Sales for 2005 were
expected to reach about $500,000, and Szaky hopes to triple
that this year with a planned launch in Home Depots and
Wal-Marts nationwide.
There, where most Americans buy gardening goods, TerraCycle
will go up against powerhouse Miracle-Gro.
"We don't want to be just be an organic plant food sold in
little organic stores," he said. "We want to compete on their
playing field."
Born in Hungary, Szaky moved with his physician parents to
Toronto at age 9. He entered Princeton to study behavioral
psychology and economics in 2001.
While visiting a friend in Montreal that fall, Szaky was
intrigued by the success his plant-loving pal was having with
homemade fertilizer generated by a box of compost and some
worms. "It wasn't an environmental thing. It was "Wow, this is
a cool business model,"' Szaky said.
The company took up residence at Rutgers University's
EcoComplex, an environmental research facility run in
partnership with Burlington County Landfill near Bordentown,
about 12 miles south of Trenton. While a TerraCycle researcher
there is tweaking specialized formulations for orchids and
African violets, the company buys worm waste from suppliers
and focuses on packaging and marketing.
