Friday, October 14, 2011

Eco-Business

An old proverb says that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. A New Jersey man has made that true for himself in his capitalist venture. Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, created a company which turns non-recyclable waste into recycled eco-friendly products. They do everything from making juice pouches into school folders and backpacks, and transforming chip bags into couches. He has even incorporated other businesses, such as Old Navy who collects old flip-flops, which TerraCycle then turns into playgrounds.

There are many ways to recycle household items to make them useful. Architecture for Humanity and Rubicon National Social Innovations created a contest encouraging entrants to find alternate uses for mattresses. The winning design was called the Helix, which reused these mattresses as sound absorption devices.

This idea is not new as we have all heard the mantra: reduce, reuse, and recycle, it is just more streamlined and modernized. Today you might find on YouTube a clip from the President of Weisenbach Recycled Products demonstrating how to make jewelry out of bottle caps. Other YouTube videos boast creative recycling options for everything from purses made of gum wrappers to table decorations made from glass bottles or two liter bottles. Recycling decreases the amounts of waste that fill up our land-fills, and these products are creative ways to re-use products for which we have already paid. By re-using what we already have and refurbishing it into something new, there is a satisfaction in gaining a new product, and also an appreciation in saving the environment and your wallet. While we may not all be budding entrepreneurs, these products can change the way that we see trash, and its potential uses in our lives.

See the clips here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/10/world/americas/terracycle-recycling-waste-szaky/index.html
http://openarchitecturenetwork.org/mattress
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hggu5jV5LFc

-Sloane Tait, Legal Intern

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