Let's Talk Trash

WASTE NOT. AN INCREASING NUMBER OF FIRMS ARE FINDING SUCCESS IN MAKING PRODUCTS OUT OF GARBAGE

Tom Szaky's office could passĀ for a landfill. Szaky, 24, the co-founder and CEO of plant-food manufacturer TerraCycle, sits in a chair that was at one time another firm's trash, next to a computer on a desk that were both once trash, and, with near palpable enthusiasm, draws supply-and-demand graphs on scraps of paper to show why he's so fond of building his business out of trash. "What is garbage?" he asks, marker in hand. "It's any commodity with a negative value, right? It's something you're willing to pay to get rid of."

And TerraCycle is willing to take it, he might...

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