TerraCycle
Kraft, Kellogg and Coca-Cola are among the big-brand marketers now offering logoed merchandise an “unusual alliance” with TerraCycle, reports Gwendolyn Bounds in the Wall Street Journal (7/1/08). TerraCycle is in the business of “upcycling,” meaning that it can take “packaging waste and sew, fuse or weave it into new products such as shower curtains, umbrellas, pencil cases, totes, lunchboxes and backpacks … Many of these items — produced from old Oreo, Kool-Aid and Bear Naked granola packages among others,” are now shipping to retailers including Target, OfficeMax and Walgreen.” To do this, TerraCycle enlists “nearly 4,000 trash-collecting brigades across the country, mostly from schools, churches and other nonprofit groups. They are paid two cents per wrapper or pouch.” The otherwise non-recyclable trash is then sent to Mexico where it is “re-fashioned into new products for retail.” Kraft, Kellogg and Coca-Cola back the effort by sponsoring the brigades (spending somewhere between $150,000 and $300,000 per year). In addition, TerraCycle collects “what’s called post-industrial waste from many manufacturers” With Coke, this includes “old billboards, misprinted labels and cans, and old glass bottles.” "We want to lock up every waste stream," says Tom Szaky,
TerraCycle’s 26-year-old co-founder. "Then you own the infrastructure
and create momentum." Ryan Vero, chief merchandising officer of
OfficeMax, loves the idea: "What TerraCycle has done so well is that
they’ve created products that aren’t boring." OfficeMax "stocks
Terracycle’s CapriSun and Kool-Aid binders and pencil pouches and has
ordered computer bags for the fall." Kraft is also now putting
TerraCycle’s logos on some of its packages "to encourage upcycling."
Founded just five years ago, TerraCycle "expects $8 million in revenue"
in 2008, up from $3.5 million last year. ~ Tim Manners, editor |
