By Melissa Corkhill
03rd November 2016
Since opening in 2006, TerraCycle Canada has engaged two million people to recycle, diverting 150 million units of difficult-to-recycle waste from landfills and raising over $400,000 for charity.
Through key partnerships with consumer goods companies and brands that seek to take greater responsibility for their difficult-to-recycle waste, Terracycle are able to provide individuals, businesses, schools and organizations access to free recycling programs. This also means that consumers have the opportunity to divert waste from landfills and the ability to participate in the nationwide movement to bridge the gap to zero waste.
‘Conceived in my college dorm room, TerraCycle’s original business model of worm fertilizer was like a lightbulb going on in my head,’ says Tom Szaky. ‘I realised we could take the school’s food waste, feed it to worms (which is an environmentally friendly process, and free labour), get beautiful worm poop (which my friend back home proved made fabulous plant fertilizer), and sell it. And instead of buying the bottles we needed (with the no money we had), we’d reuse used plastic soda bottles to serve as the product’s packaging. A new product made entirely out of garbage. The Home Depot Canada was the first retail partner to carry TerraCycle’s worm poop fertilizer.’
Find out more about the programme here.
