Product Description

The amazing story of what Inc. calls “The coolest little startup in America.”

While a freshman at Princeton, Tom Szaky co-founded a company that recycles garbage into worm poop, liquefies it, then packages it in used soda bottles, creating TerraCycle Plant Food. Less than five years later, this all-natural, highly effective fertilizer was available in every Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart, and more than 3000 other locations. It’s a thrilling entrepreneurial success story—and it’s just the beginning of what makes Revolution in a Bottle fascinating.

Szaky argues for a new approach to business, an “eco-capitalism” based on a “triple bottom line.” Every business, he says, should aspire to be good for people, good for the environment, and (last but definitely not least) good for profits. He shows how the first two goals can (surprisingly) help the third.

Of course, eco-capitalism isn’t a new idea, and many companies brag about being environmentally-friendly. But no one does it as effectively as TerraCycle. Szaky and his colleagues figured out how to sell a useful, organic, safe product without charging a premium for it. Their big insight was finding value in things that others throw away, from the triggers on spray-bottles to misprinted cardboard boxes.

Now they’re also reusing garbage to create new products, from bird feeders to tote bags, and even engaging major companies like Kraft and General Mills to sponsor their waste streams. Szaky shows how any business can look at garbage with a fresh eye, and reap the benefits.

In the spirit of TerraCycle, this book will be printed on 100% recycled materials.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #546851 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781591842507
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Tom Szaky, 26, is co-founder and CEO of TerraCycle, producer of the world’s first products that are made entirely from and packaged entirely in waste. Born in Budapest and raised in Toronto, Szaky moved to the U.S. in 2001 to attend Princeton University, but left a year later to focus on his startup. TerraCycle, based in Trenton, New Jersey, now has annual sales of $8 million, sustained five-year growth of over 200% per year, and has been featured by hundreds of media outlets.

Customer Reviews

Hype in a bottle?
This was an interesting book and in many ways Mr. Szaky's mission is an inspiring one. That said, the book itself is light on content and heavy on irrelevant details. I think it would be enough if we all agreed that Tom Szaky is a really cool cat and then that was the end of it, freeing him up to deal with the real issues that are at stake here. Instead, be prepared to have your nose rubbed in it for the duration of the read.

Mr. Szaky's business model is an interesting one and he should be commended for what he has accomplished. One does wonder, however, if he is simply offering a cheap get-out-of-jail-free card to industries whose behaviors could and should be aggressively regulated by the state.

The cover of the book is cleverly designed to be folded and taped into a mail-in envelop that the reader can use to send his own collection of detritus to Mr. Szaky to be upcycled into a prom dress or a napsack or whatever. Unfortunately, the publisher saw fit to make sure that the book was supplied with two covers so that the reader could participate in the revolution without defacing the book itself, thus duplicating the environmental impact of this particular book cover and nullifying the underlying argument. This might be an appropriate metaphor for much of the environmental movement in the U.S. today--easy choices that look good and feel good but that don't, in the end, make a very significant dent in the underlying problem. Hopefully Tetracycle does better than this in their other business practices.

PR disguised as a book
I was really disappointed. The book is basically one big ad for a company that isn't really doing anything to help the environment. More consumption is not the answer.

"More Like A Tree, Less Like A Fire"
Not since John A. Roebling made steel cables for the Brooklyn Bridge has Trenton, NJ fulfilled its motto: "Trenton Makes, The World Takes"... That is, until now.

Enter Tom Szaky and his recently formed, rocking fantastic eco-products company, TerraCycle, charmingly chronicled in "Revolution In A Bottle--How TerraCycle Is Redefining Green Business." In 2002 as a drop-out from Princeton Szaky formed TerraCycle to make a liquid plant food derived from organic liquid waste and packaged in reclaimed plastic bottles. Now TerraCycle innovates dozens of new products each year: vinyl LP wall clocks, milk-jug flower pots, wine-barrel composters, juice-pouch pencil bags, food-wrapper shower curtains--all made from waste, all marketed through major big box channels like WalMart, Kroegers, and Home Depot, all making practical sense as alternatives for materialism's detritus otherwise headed for landfills. Nearly 100 years after Roebling spun the steel cables that turned Trenton into an industrial powerhouse, Szaky seeks nothing less from his own Trenton base to turn the world to a new era of green business.

He might just succeed. I had the pleasure to serve as TerraCycle's first chairman. In avuncular roles as cheerleader, coach and curmudgeon, I was a first-hand witness to Szaky's uniquely captivating blend of creativity, chaos, charisma and commitment. This talented young business leader, more comfortable in T shirt and backward baseball cap, packs more savvy and sense than men in suits twenty years older. From shoveling you-know-what (literally) to rigging bottling machines to dumpster-diving for cast-off furniture to designing products to winning orders from WalMart, he does it all with a merry, impish charm that is infectious. Tom Szaky's young odyssey as eco-entrepreneur is a rollicking good tale.

Among the several insights Szaky has learned along the way, I was struck by one in particular. A true eco-company must be "more like a tree, less like a fire". Though his own imagination blazes with brilliant energy, Szaky is also firmly rooted in common sense. Being "eco-friendly" alone is not enough. No business can succeed in Szaky's view unless it delivers the best product at the best price for the customer. Getting product on the shelves at WalMart is a great achievement. Getting products off the shelves at WalMart is an even greater one. Unfortunately Szaky doesn't let on whether TerraCycle itself is achieving such sustainability. But we all hope it does, for the sake of propelling this futuristic business leader to yet new horizons of need--and for the sake of a materialist culture crying out for the kinds of eco-innovations he and his company can conceive.

With the authentically green endorsement by natural capitalist legend Paul Hawken, Revolution in a Bottle by Tom Szaky makes an inspiring read by a another natural capitalist in the making. Go TerraCycle!