When I think of worms I visualize icky and squirmy creepy crawlers that are great to be used as fish bait and to feed to birds, but not so great when they form massive piles in the street after it rains.  And when I hear the word “garbage” I automatically think of that foul-smelling junk that used to accumulate in my next-door-neighbor’s dorm room. So what happens when you put these two tainted things together? Well, for two former Princeton University students it means the beginning of a successful multi-million dollar business!

An Idea is Born

Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer came up with the idea of TerraCycle, better known as worm poop fertilizer, when they were at Princeton just hanging around in their dorms and watching a box full of worms. They realized that the waste from the worms could be used as totally organic, all-natural plant food that would be 100% safe for the environment. All that they needed to do was to wait 3 weeks for the waste to liquefy and then package it in a spray bottle so that it could be a sprayed on plants.  To learn more about the history of TerraCycle you can watch a video here.

Bottle Brigade

Now what’s more even more amazing than the concept of recycling worm poop is that the product is packaged in used 20 oz plastic bottles! The bottles are gathered from an environmental fundraiser known as the Bottle Brigade, which sets up in elementary schools and other organizations. The Bottle Brigade in return offers $.06 per cleaned and de-labeled bottle to the organization’s charity of choice. Once TerraCycle gets the bottles to the factory, they’re cleaned, repackaged with a new label, filled up with TerraCycle and are ready to fight the green fight!

TerraCycle is an eco-friendly product that has effectively found a way to recycle waste and use it to produce a healthy product for all plant vegetation. To learn how you can become part of the TerraCycle team you can visit the homepage.