How do you feel about recycling?
I've talked a lot about recycling on this podcast, and you know, I've
talked a lot about it from a benefit standpoint and also from a not so good
standpoint because we know a lot of the items that get recycled within our
area, or maybe we thought were getting recycled, weren't getting recycled.
But today on the podcast we have Tom Ske, who is the founder and CEO of TerraCycle.
He is here to talk about TerraCycle and how TerraCycle
pretty much recycles anything.
And he says it's based on how much people are willing to pay for it.
You know, he breaks it down into formulas.
Very insightful conversation.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
It's gonna hopefully change your mind about recycling and maybe
participating in some of these programs that TerraCycle has to offer.
They're all around the world.
It's a lot of fun.
We're talking about plastic pollution in the ocean.
We're talking about microplastics and how they could be maybe used and how much it
costs to use something like that, and to making other products all on this episode
of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
Let's start the show.
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lu, and this is the podcast where you find out
what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean,
and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
On today's episode, we're gonna be talking to Tomski, who is the founder and you
know, president and CEO of TerraCycle.
TerraCycle is an organization that takes your waste.
It's making waste the hero, as Tom says, and brings it into a production
line to make different products that you will buy or that somebody will
buy and truly recycles these types of items and also provides ways for
you can recycle pretty much anything.
I think it's really important to have these types of conversations
to understand that there are companies who are out there.
Working in waste and there's so many opportunities to work in waste, but
people are just not doing the work.
And it's something that has to be done in the future.
If we wanna truly reduce our waste.
Obviously we have to reduce our waste at the point of consumerism.
You know, when we're buying something, we get to vote for that
every time we pay for something.
We also have to understand that, you know, as waste increases and
as products are built to have more waste, we have to be able to
recycle that type of waste as well.
So on both ends, right, we don't want to just say recycling's the only
way we wanna do it for both ends.
So it's gonna be interesting to see what happens with this, but I think it's
something that people are gonna love.
And I hope you enjoy this interview with Tomski from TerraCycle.
Enjoy and I'll talk to you after.
Hey Tom, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
Are you ready to talk about TerraCycle?
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me.
Awesome.
This, uh, it is great to have you on the podcast.
This has been, uh, a bucket list of mine.
I've been a big fan of TerraCycle for a long time.
I'm happy to have you on to be able to, if not introduce, or just to
kind of let people in behind the curtain of TerraCycle, what it's all
about, how it came to be, uh, and just how people can get involved in,
in submitting items and so forth.
And, and I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to have to have this
podcast, uh, published for, for the audience to be able to hear.
Uh, so when we get in, before we get into all of that, Tom, why don't you just
let us know who you are and what you do?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, well, I'm Tom and I'm the, uh, founder and CEO of TerraCycle.
And if you haven't heard of TerraCycle, you know, we've been around now for, uh,
actually next year will be our 25th year of operation for so a little bit of time.
That's awesome.
I know.
It's amazing how, how time flies and, uh, we operate all
over the world in 21 countries.
Uh, and the things we do are all about.
Fulfilling our central mission, which is eliminating the idea of waste.
And, uh, that can range from, uh, uh, cleaning up high risk litter.
We run Bangkok's biggest, uh, river cleanup system, all the
way to recycling things that are not traditionally recyclable.
Uh, we are the world's largest cigarette butt recycler, world's
largest coffee capsule, recycler, hundreds of other waste streams.
Uh, we help companies then make their things from waste, uh, from
Olympic podiums to the world's first shoe from shoes or pen from pens.
And then we really push upstream on how do we really shift out of just recycling
things to reusing, um, all on this journey for how do we solve for the idea of waste.
It's incredible what you guys are able to do and what you've been able to
do accomplish over the last 25 years.
Um, how, like, how, like, this is what I wanted to find out is, yeah.
Is how did this all build?
Like where did this all begin?
Yeah.
Take us from the beginning.
'cause like, you know, we've, we've heard the recycling.
You know, sort of story, you know, people came out, recycling was a big thing, but
then we realized that, oh, wait a minute.
You know, not everything is recycled.
And a lot of things we, we think is recycled isn't, but TerraCycle
can kind of recycle stuff that we just don't think is, is recycled.
So how did this whole idea start?
Yeah, it's a wild, uh, story.
So, look, I've always loved entrepreneurship as a young kid,
you know, like my lemonade stand was badass when I was like 12, you know?
Um, I started my first company at 14.
Nothing purposeful, just like a web design company, right?
But still, you know, like I love the idea of entrepreneurship.
And I, uh, when I got to college, I had this real turning point where one
of the classes I took was Introduction to Economics, like econ 1 0 1.
Yeah.
And the professor gets up opening lecture first class first, everything, and
says, what's the purpose of business?
Which is a highly appropriate question.
Yeah.
And long story short, the answer she was looking for was
maximizing profit to shareholders.
Interesting.
And like that fell flat for me, right?
Yes.
It fell flat because there's so many stakeholders the business serves mm-hmm.
That are, that don't give two shits about profit to shareholders.
How can that be the point?
Right?
Yeah.
And it got sort of this journey going for me where I was starting to really
like, like, uh, meditate on this.
And where I landed maybe slightly utopian, is that maybe profit
is an indicator of health.
So it's critically important.
Right.
Of course.
If your business is not profitable, it will die.
Yeah.
And it will not be healthy and strong.
Right.
It's unhealthy.
Yeah.
And inversely, if it's profitable, it will be flourishing, have
longevity, all those things.
But maybe that then leaves room that for what is the actual purpose, right.
Because our purpose on the planet is not to be healthy, but we have
to be healthy to manifest anything.
Right.
Um, is then how does the business, uh, you know, make the
world better in some fashion.
Yeah, right.
In some way.
And that felt much more comfortable for me.
And then I started thinking, you know, as one does, like where should I focus?
Um, you know, the, the, the honest story is, uh, my friends, this was
now mind you, like 25 years ago.
So the relationship, the legal relationship with growing pot
was very different than today.
Yes.
Um, but my friends up in Canada started, you know, sort of growing
some stuff in their basement.
They couldn't really figure it out.
I get invited up fall break freshman year, uh, because they had, you know, the plants
were working well and they were, when I got into their, you know, their home and I
asked them like, how did you guys do this?
And they said we were taking organic waste, feeding it to
worms and using the worm poop to make the plants, uh, flourish.
That's fantastic.
And that lit the initial spark for me on making the, the topic of interest.
And it's become now a, you know, life's journey mm-hmm.
On exploring waste.
Because what I realized is that, and have continued to realize is
waste is filled with a phenomenal, the idea of waste is filled with
a phenomenal amount of anomalies.
The anomaly I noticed right then and there was, wait a minute, it's garbage.
So you guys could get paid to take this.
Then you can get paid for the output.
Huh?
Like you have negative raw material costs.
Right.
In fact, an interesting thing, 'cause I was drawing, you know, in econ class
is lots of supply and demand curves and garbage is the only commodity
that you cannot draw on a traditional supply and demand curve because it
intersects in the negative quadrant.
In other words, it has monster supply, but negative demand.
In other words, in Japan for example, the legal definition of waste is
something you pay to get rid of.
Right, right, right.
I mean, it's obvious when it's said, but it's, you know, like
there's this counterintuitive, that's the legal definition.
'cause otherwise, like if I have an object, here's a pen.
Mm-hmm.
It's my property.
Even if it's empty, broken, it's still my property.
I can give that to you.
I can do all sorts of things.
Of course, it's the moment I say I need to pay someone to remove
it, that's when it's garbage.
Right.
That's insane.
You think about that way.
Yeah.
It's, and, and it's not just, that goes on and on, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like, uh, garbage is filled with these phenomenal an
anomalies, which are interesting.
Mm-hmm.
And if you can learn about them, it really helps suddenly bring out the solution.
So, you know, uh, uh, another example, right, just to sort of give you some more,
is, um, isn't it interesting that the only industry in the world that will legally
possess all of your property one day with no exception, is the garbage industry?
Yes.
Legally possess, not be paid to transport.
Mm-hmm.
Not have some touch on it, but legally possess.
And 99% of what we buy becomes the property of a garbage company
within the year of purchase.
And for how big of, uh, how big these statements are.
It's also objectively the least innovative industry per dollar of revenue it has.
Why?
Because it's.
Smelly, nasty, gross.
Not metaphorically, but like in the flesh, right?
Yeah.
It's not a, a attractor of, you know, sexiness and talent and all this jazz.
Right.
Um, it's also though an incredibly modern idea, and I've written books on this
topic, but it's only, uh, it was invented in the 1950s, which is 75 years ago.
Unreal.
Isn't that wild?
Right.
Um, before this, you know, like, yes, we, like all organisms, we
had outputs always, you know, from chimpanzees to, to now, but our outputs
up until the fifties were something that nature has systems to digest.
Yes.
Right?
Yes.
Our chair that you and I are sitting on would've been made from wood.
You could throw it in the forest.
Forest would've no problem with it.
Today, it's probably some polymer plastic that the forest
is not gonna be so happy with.
Right.
Um, our clothing would've been made from what, like cotton wool, maybe silk.
Today 60% of the clothing we wear is some petrochemical derivative, nylon, latex.
Yeah.
You know, uh, uh, um, different sort of, you know, advanced materials.
And we then exacerbate this by consuming today 10 times more than
we did just back then in the 1950s.
Yeah.
Right.
And it goes on and on.
And so this became really fascinating, but you know, the truth is TerraCycle
then started as a worm poop company.
Uh, the logo I drew was Yeah.
A worm originally.
It's a worm.
Yeah, that makes sense.
It's a worm.
TerraCycle is earth cycle, you know, worm poop.
Right, right.
And uh, we first started the journey by basically saying to solve waste, let's
take garbage and make products out of it.
Mm-hmm.
Now the interesting, and it worked, you know, the warm poop business grew.
I dropped outta school and, you know, off we went.
But we had this big reflection, maybe, I don't know, like four or five years in.
And we're at that point, like a five, $6 million small worm poop business of
are we gonna really achieve our mission by making products outta garbage?
'cause what we started realizing is we were trying to make the best product.
And even if we say it must be made from waste, we would, as a result.
Be taking certain organic ways to feed the worms, but not other, we were
taking certain use soda bottles to package the worm poop, but not others.
Right.
We're picking the best of what is technically garbage, and then we
would never deal with the bulk of it.
Right.
Um, and so that created a massive shift for us.
We decided to effectively close down the worm poop business and refocus on
making the garbage, the business hero, not the, not the output, not the product.
And that's sort of how we landed on the, you know, where
we are today and off we went.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
And if you think about too, how society has changed, even the products that we had
back, you know, I'm, I'm in my forties, so back when I was a, a kid, like the
furnace, you know, your dishwasher, your computers, they all lasted a long time.
Yeah.
They all lasted like, especially like the long items, like the dish, uh,
dishwasher and all that kinda stuff.
You know, you're looking at 25, 30 years before you're thinking of replacing it.
Now you're probably looking at a life cycle for those, like a dishwasher.
I remember talking to some people and they're like, you're looking at
like three to five years, and as soon as it's broken, it's more expensive
to fix than it is to get a new one.
Which it is insane to me.
And they just, it's, I guess it's, that's more of the economy.
They want you to churn out and buy, buy more new things, but that increases
the amount of waste that we produce.
Right.
Massively.
And what's so interesting, you're referring like to this concept
of planned obsolescence, right?
Yes.
Um, where things are planned to break.
Because that's better for the economy, right.
To, for you to buy a new dishwasher in three years mm-hmm.
Than to maybe repair one in 20 years.
That's the other thing.
Not only is, are all these things made, uh, like much poorer quality.
Now you could argue what's the virtue of that?
'cause we're gonna shit all over this for a moment.
So let's talk about the positive, the positives is that, that dishwasher
is technically cheaper Yes.
Than it was before relative to your income, right?
Yeah.
Like the amount of labor hours you have to put out to get
the dishwasher has gone down.
Yes.
Right.
Um, a good example is like a hundred years ago, we would, it's 1920s.
We would buy an average of two apparel items a year and use them for 20 years.
Uh, before disposal.
Today it's 66 apparel items per year worn on average, three times before disposal.
But a key part of this is, that's incredible, right?
It why I bet you a wool sweater would've been a lot more labor hours
a hundred years ago than it is today.
Right.
Today it's what, 10 minutes of labor Back then it could have been
weeks of labor hours that you have to, uh, earn to spend on that.
Yeah.
And now the planned off lessons thing is so fascinating because I don't know,
uh, it was actually proposed as a law back in, I think it was in, in, in, in,
in, in the UK at some point when the economy was down, it was proposed as
a regulation saying manufacturers must take back or make break objects in short
period of time to spur the economy, right.
To create more consumption.
It never passed 'cause it sort of grotesque, but it
was proposed in that way.
And I, and then what happened is companies realized that, well, we should, you
know, this is good business anyway.
It doesn't have to be regulated.
We should do that.
Um, a very famous example of this is, uh.
Incandescent light bulbs.
Now they've been really disrupted by the LED bulbs, but back in the day when we
would just buy incandescent bulbs, what was it, like, 5,000 hours on a light bulb.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
You know how long, when the incandescent bulb was first commercialized,
how long the light bulb lasted.
This is like a hundred years ago.
There's still one burning in a Florida, uh, uh, uh, firehouse that
has not gone out in a hundred years.
And what happened is the light bulb manufacturers realized if we
make light bulbs that last forever, we're not gonna sell that many.
Yeah.
So they created a cartel that purposefully took down the, uh, life
of a light bulb still to this day, just so that they can sell more.
Right.
So, but it's important to understand the tension.
Right.
Of uh, because that's the only way one can then figure out how to solve it.
Right.
We shifted our 'cause.
We also vote for this, right?
We buy these things.
Yeah.
We vote for their existence.
And what drives our vote?
Is generally convenience, convenience of low cost.
'cause that conveniently allows us to buy more things and
convenience in all other ways.
Fast delivery, you know, easy.
Um, mending is less convenient than buying new, you know, that's
why we don't cobble our shoes or, uh, darn our socks or mm-hmm.
Fix anything anymore.
Right.
Um, and, and, but, and that's that, uh, uh, uh, really drives then increase
of economy, so they go hand in hand.
Everyone's happy from a business point of view.
Right, right.
It just creates this phenomenal externality, not just of
waste mind you, but like.
Every environmental issue we face.
Yeah.
Climate change, uh, species diversity loss, which I think in the ocean is
manifesting way more than it is on land.
'cause we don't see it.
Right.
We don't even know about it.
Like half of that.
Right.
No, it's, I bet you if we say what is the World Wildlife Fund said
that we lost 50% of our, uh, species diversity one in the past 50 years.
Yeah.
I bet you that's more terrestrial than it is aquatic.
Yes.
And I bet you if you want aquatic it would be worse.
Could be in the nineties.
Yeah, exactly.
Could be in the nineties.
Right.
So all these externalities are linked to one thing only.
Yeah.
Us voting for them by buying things that create extraction.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah.
And, uh, I think that's the key thing to reckon with in this whole gluttonous
consumption of cheap crap right now.
But with that, like, it's hard to look at the system that we're
in right now and because a lot of people will say like, you know.
I guess the re they, they'll say, first of all, I guess like we look at this
waste, we, we know that we're in a system where there's a lot of waste.
Yes.
Um, so, and, and we know recycling on a, on a grand scale is not
what we hoped it would be.
No.
It's not what we, it was sold to be.
Right?
Yes, that's right.
Um, but TerraCycle takes it a little differently 'cause you
guys are not just recycling to make the same products, right?
Like say a a water bottle to back into a water bottle.
You're actually taking it and making different products.
Uh, I think remember when I first discovered TerraCycle was like
park benches and things like that?
Yep.
Where did that idea come from?
Like, to be like, oh, we're just gonna make cr like brand new products from
these, from these like waste items.
Well, if I'm, I, I'm gonna take a step back to answer your question, right?
Sure.
Because you mentioned, uh, that, you know, recycling isn't
what we thought it would be.
And I think you're precisely right.
But I wanna peel that open a little bit.
Yeah, please.
That will frame.
Everything we talk about.
Right.
Perfect.
And this was one of those academic things that, you know, we dove into
when we shifted away from being a worm poop business as to what really
makes something recycled gold.
Right?
Yeah.
Like actually get recycled.
And here is the problem is that we have a misunderstanding of the system.
That's why it's not what we hoped it would be.
We perceive, and this has been, you know, we've studied this in our consumer
insights department, you know, with consumers all over the world, everywhere
and unanimously people view recycling as a public service similar to say healthcare.
Mm-hmm.
Um, or education.
Mm-hmm.
And the concept in healthcare is if, if, uh, if the cure exists
or the therapy exists to help you, it will be given to you.
Yes.
You know?
Yes.
Irrelevant of the cost and your income.
It's just, I mean, maybe America's a bit different, but
like everywhere else, right?
Yeah.
You, you know, it's, uh, you, it's almost like a moral obligation to,
you know, treat whatever is the issue.
Mm-hmm.
And.
The difference though is recycling is not a public service.
It is carried out unanimously, with no exception by only for-profit
companies everywhere in the world.
There is no law that tells those for-profit companies that
they have to recycle anything.
Right?
Right.
They choose what gets recycled.
And so really when you deep go below the surface, what makes a cardboard
box or an aluminum can recycled in most countries that have recycling,
it's not that it's special, it's because it's profitable to recycle.
Mm. And what makes 95% of objects, uh, uh, not recyclable, like, uh,
you know, if we just look at each other are clothing, the, yeah.
Electronics.
Uh, this pen.
You know, I mean, most things in our, in our, uh, in our video not
recycled is not that it can't be, it just costs more to collect and
process and the results are worth.
Interesting.
That's it.
It's just economics.
That's like, another way to think about this is how can you make an object?
Go Circular is, I think only one of two ways.
Imagine if I put an object in front of you, right.
Either that object has to have enough intrinsic value in it that
you're like, yeah, thank you for putting this object in front of me.
You know?
Yeah.
If I put a bar of gold in front of you, I'm sure you'd be thrilled.
Right.
Or, uh, whatever.
Right.
But if I put something that isn't valuable in front of you, well, the
only way to do it is to pay you.
And at some point when I pay you enough, your happiness will get to the
point where you'll happily deal with that object and give it a new life.
Right.
No matter what.
It's Right.
Right.
And that is the foundational point.
So when people say recycling is broken, it's because they put
things in the recycling bin that they hope will be recycled, that
don't, that aren't recycled.
And that's because the way it's communicated implies that
that'll happen, which is poor.
Mm-hmm.
It's bad framing.
Um, a really good example of this is, say those clothing bins, because
this is really tied to, you know, pollution in the ocean, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like we put our used clothing into those charity bins.
They may be in front of a school.
Yeah.
Or a, or a, uh, church, uh, you know, whatever it may be.
Yeah.
And what do we think happens?
We think what happens is our clothing will then be.
Gone to a good use, someone in need will use it.
But here's the reality, right?
That entire business is driven by the resale value of the clothing.
Mm-hmm.
Period.
Because it costs more to recycle clothing than the resulting materials are worse.
There's no economics to recycle it.
It is just driven by the resale value.
Now in America, if we put a bunch of used clothing, remember that's
our garbage that we don't want.
Yeah.
Only 1% of it can be resold in America because it's stuff
we didn't want to begin with.
You know what I mean?
Right, right.
So the sorting centers that take this will sort out the brand name goods,
the Patagonia jackets, you know, the Levi jeans that are in good quality.
Mm-hmm.
Ironically, probably shouldn't have been thrown into the bin to begin with.
That will get resold at a vintage store in the us.
99% gets bailed and sold by the kilo to emerging countries.
Now, let's say you and I are the vintage shop, use clothing
shop in, uh, you know, Ethiopia.
Yeah, we're gonna be excited to buy this stuff 'cause we're
buying clothing by the kilo.
Way cheaper than making way cheaper.
Yeah, yeah.
Way cheaper.
But we're gonna buy at eyes wide open that about two thirds no one's gonna buy.
Hmm.
But one third they're gonna buy.
And that makes the business economics work.
Yeah.
But what do we do with that Two thirds We dump it.
And so what I'm trying to highlight here is that is exactly how it works.
Now the problem is the person putting it into the goodwill bin, you know,
in Kansas City, you know, uh uh, thinks everything is gonna be reused.
'cause the bin shouldn't just say, this is a reuse bin.
It should say, if the clothing is has a market on it and someone's gonna buy it,
it will certainly be reused for sure.
And if it isn't, it's gonna be dumped.
Yeah.
That would be the accurate way to describe that process.
And I think that's the essence.
Once, once you view recycling as actually just urban mining for material value,
everything makes sense from there.
That is so interesting and it's, you know, something we've talked about a lot
on this podcast is, is the fact is like if it's, if it's recyclable, there's
a demand out there for that product at some point, whether it's in its true
form or whether it's in another form.
Um, so, so for for TerraCycle, yeah.
When you first came out with this, this vision to say, okay, we're gonna take
products and we're gonna make another product out of this, or waste, sorry,
I should say waste from products and we're gonna make another product.
How did you choose.
The waste, was it waste that nobody else was gonna take?
Yeah.
Or was it waste that you knew was gonna fit within a, within like in a,
like would do well in a park bench?
Well, it's a good question, right?
So like when we first began in the worm poop days, we were a consumer product
company making objects, uh, products from waste, from fertilizer to bird feeder,
then later backpacks and whatever.
And there we said, we wanna make a backpack.
What's the right waste to make it from Maybe we sew together
juice pouches and make a backpack.
So we then started as a classic consumer good thought process
where the product is the hero.
Yeah.
And what waste inputs can we make the product from.
Mm-hmm.
When we realized that that is limited because we're gonna pick only the
best garbage, we switched it and said the garbage has to be the hero.
And remember the issue is solely economics.
Everything in the world can be recycled.
It.
I've not seen a waste stream.
That cannot be, the only times it cannot be is if there's a law preventing it.
A bloody glove from an operating room legally can't be recycled.
Right.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
But other than that, they all can.
Yeah.
It's just a question of money.
Right.
So I'll give you an example.
We're the world's largest coffee capsule, recycler, and recycling.
A coffee capsule is always gonna come at a cost.
It's never gonna make money.
And that's, again, 95% of goods.
So it, because the money is the issue, what we first said is, let's
go to stakeholders that are willing to pay and fund for recycling to
exist on certain waste streams.
And the intuitive stakeholder could be like the people who
made it, whose logo is on it.
Right.
It could be the retailer who sold it.
Um, it could be maybe where it's consumed like a, um, a pool may
care about swimsuit and goggle recycling disproportionately, yeah.
Right.
They're certainly not gonna care about recycling bicycle helmets.
Right, right, right.
And so it's about finding those stakeholders who are willing to fund.
Now, when you have the funding.
Let's just take an example.
Like cigarette butts, right?
Most littered item in the world.
Oh my gosh.
So there could be the tobacco company, it could be a retailer
that might sell cigarettes, it could be, uh, maybe a city, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Because they have high rates of litter on these, uh, or other stakeholders.
Then we bring that into our r and d organization and we first make sure that
we can find a recycling solution for it.
Um, that's before we set up a program.
And generally speaking, what we're looking at is can we take the thing apart
and can we reconstitute the materials?
So for example, in cigarette butts, the breakthrough that really helped
enable that was the ability to separate the paper that's glued
onto the filter from the filter.
'cause the filter's plastic and the, and the paper's paper fiber, right?
Yep.
And, uh, once we have that, we have a process set up.
Then we start building the program and getting it bigger and bigger.
As that happens, we don't stay there on the process.
We keep trying to refine the process to get to the gold standard.
Which is, it goes right back into what it started with.
That's the endpoint we try to get to.
If there is the appetite from the stakeholders and uh, you know, 'cause that
takes a lot of resource to achieve that.
So we will, you know, let's take shoe recycling is a good example.
Mm-hmm.
When we first started, we figured out how can we take the shoe apart,
separate all the components, make sure we can reconstitute those.
And, and there a big breakthrough was how do we take shredded leather
and make new rolls of leather?
Right?
Uh, yeah.
And we did that by shredding them.
And then you can sort of hear them together to create a new leather compound.
Almost like, um, you know, in wine corks you have like a normal natural
cork, but then you may see a. A natural cork, but it's made from lots of
little pieces like a Birkenstock sole.
Yep.
That sort of effect.
Right.
Okay.
Now, once we had that, then the question was how do we go more than that?
And then we started working with shoe companies to turn the shoes into things
they care about, like sports surfaces.
And just last year with asics, we launched with them their
first shoe made from you shoes.
But that is the highest technical achievement, right?
Yeah.
Like that is really tough and requires a lot of, that's a lot of research and Yeah.
And a lot of investment on part of the partner of who like, of course, really
needs to lean in because it's, I can't do that without them wanting to lean in.
Right?
Yeah.
But that's sort of the journey we take.
Um, uh, but the, the big white elephant in the room is that it's
all about the money flow, right?
Um, someone has to fund it because in parallel to this advancement in, uh,
in all sorts of advanced materials that nature doesn't have systems for,
and us consuming quite a bit within all that, the biggest mega trend
in object design is cost reduction.
Everything is cheaper tomorrow than.
Everything.
Mm-hmm.
And as you reduce costs and things there, the, the value that you can
recover intrinsically goes down.
Hmm.
Right?
Yeah.
The thing I'm putting in front of you looks less, less, less and
less like a gold bar every day.
Right, right, right.
That's so cool.
That is so cool.
So how do you decide.
What items can be made from the waste that you're collecting or
even what waste you collect to make?
Like do you still, where does it, is it like, is it a chicken
and egg kind of situation?
Like what product do you ha do you want to make?
And then what waste would be best?
No, it's, there's a, it's, it's actually very linear, so I'll walk you through it.
Yeah.
So the first part is, 'cause the issue is a money flow.
The first question is, where is their willingness to fund?
So if, for example, we have willingness from a great company like lip rip
curl to fund wetsuit, recycling, then we're gonna focus on wetsuits.
If inversely we can't find anyone to wanna fund bicycle helmet recycling,
that won't be the focus because without the money flow, nothing happens, right?
'cause everything costs more than the results are worth.
So you, you depend on the vision and the effort put willing, being
willing to be put in by a specific company or investor to invest in that.
Yes.
In order to even start even thinking about doing something,
it needs to be some stakeholders.
If you take wetsuits, it could be like rip curls a partner.
So it could be the wetsuit manufacturer, right.
But it could be maybe a dive shop, you know?
Right.
It could be a diving coalition.
It could be any stakeholder, but it's gonna be someone who cares more about
wetsuits than the average bear, you know?
Okay.
Then once, sorry, go ahead.
Go ahead.
No, no, please go ahead.
Well, I was gonna say like, what's, I was gonna say that like the next step
is like, are they collecting the waste or are they just that's, that's, no, no.
Great.
Yeah.
So then the next step comes, which is, okay, now that we know
that there's interest, right?
Yeah.
Then we think through, 'cause what are the costs?
They pay?
They pay for whatever it costs to collect the waste.
Yeah.
What it costs to convert that into a sellable material minus what
the sellable material is worth.
Right.
That's the cost.
So then we think through how do we collect and.
Collection is not just about how do you collect as cheaply as possible mm-hmm.
Collection's also about how do you create as much value for
whoever's paying for it as possible.
So take the, the wetsuit example.
A really good business logic for someone like Rip Curl is, wait a
minute, if I offer wetsuit recycling, maybe I run a promotion saying we
rip curl will recycle any brand of wetsuit, but when you do, we'll give
you whatever, 10% off your new one.
But of our brand.
Right.
Gotcha.
'cause as long as you can build in some business logic,
the money flow gets bigger.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
And then these programs can get incredibly large, like uh, you know, in
some cases, like in uh, coffee capsule recycling in Canada, we collect back
30% of what, uh, of what is consumed.
That's amazing.
But it's also one of the best drivers of which brand you choose.
Yes.
And those are connected concepts.
'cause money flow comes from business in many cases.
Yeah.
So then we think about the collection.
So in that example, the collection for wetsuits would probably be in retailers.
'cause that's where you're gonna make your next purchasing decision.
Then we also think about how do we make the collection as convenient
and as affordable as possible?
So it's easy for someone to take part and it doesn't break the bank.
Right?
Yeah.
So for, yeah, like for, I was gonna say, for example, uh, we mentioned it,
uh, right before we started to record, uh, you know, Arbon is a company.
Yeah.
Uh, that, that I, that I use.
I have these little FS sticks, which is like a little green tea extract, and
they come in individual packages, plastic packages, and there's a, there's a program
with TerraCycle where I can, you know, basically when I'm finished, I, that
comes with a, a. Basically like a, a, a, um, a label that to go to TerraCycle
plus a package and you just stuff that package as fa as much as you can.
You know, you, you, uh, you know, secure it, you zip it up and then you send
it to Purolator and Purolator brings it over, sends it over to you guys.
And sometimes I'll have like three or four and I'll just send, like, I'll save 'em
all up and then I'll just send 'em off.
Makes it easy for me.
I literally just drop it off.
I don't have to do anything else.
It's probably one of the simplest processes for me.
And then I know that the, the product that I use is gonna be used for
something better than, what if I just threw it out in the garbage?
Exactly right.
Yeah.
So that's a, yeah, and there's dozens of different methods of collection, right?
Yeah.
It could be what you described, which would be a mail-in model.
It could be public locations, like, uh, right.
I think in Canada where something like 50% of all the schools, uh,
uh, uh, like, you know, uh, public schools, K through 12 schools use
our programs and, and many other.
That's, uh, uh, such examples.
Then we think through, and this goes to your question on what do we make
it is first we have to make sure that we can recycle it, that we can take it
apart and reconstitute the materials, and then honestly, to make the price
as cheap as possible, we sell the materials to whoever pays the most.
Yeah.
And to us, it's not, you know, that's the key because that's gonna get them
the program to be as big as possible.
Now we don't stop there.
Then we go, uh, uh, back to the company, whether it's Arbon or Rip
Curl or whichever one, and say, now that this is all functioning.
How do we really elevate the waste and try to get it to go
right back into your system so it becomes as closed loop as possible?
Yeah.
That may start with deployments, like marketing deployments.
Like with Colgate, we've built, I think two dozen playgrounds from
toothpaste, tubes and toothbrushes, or with Procter and Gamble from their
waist, every Olympic podium since the Tokyo Olympics and, and so Wow.
Really that's, yeah.
It could be that sort of stuff.
Wow.
But then we say, okay, how do we get it more into your system?
Maybe then we start making the displays their products sit on, or the fixtures
for their stores with the end goal to be right back into what it began from.
That is so, and that's the journey that our r and DT team takes over many years.
Yeah.
To make sure that we can formulate the waste, make it behave in the
way that it needs to, to be able to create that, that outcome.
Because these products were never designed with the idea of
being recyclable into themselves.
So your r and d team is, it just consists of a number of different, like, uh,
engineers and, and product engineers and marketers and, and so forth.
It's, it's mostly polymers.
Uh, uh, it's, it's not just polymer, but it's like material scientists.
So it's People specialize in alloys or, or plastics Yeah.
Or polymers or fibers or glass.
We have a whole laboratory, you know, a big one out here where it's, because it's
about the ability to take the, the, the waste and then process it in a way that
it can be used for a certain application.
Makes sense.
Right.
A very simple example of this would be if you collect, let's say potato chip bags.
The color of the plastic at the end that you get is going to be green.
It's gonna be green, because when you mix all the inks
together, what comes out is green.
It's sort of like when kids have paint and they mix it all together,
like Play-Doh, it becomes brown.
Yes.
In the world of recycling, green is the brown.
Right.
And now you need to make that color something that someone actually
wants to use in their product.
So that's a very simple example of like the coloration, but it could be
the how fast the plastic melts, how strong is it, how bendable is it?
Those are more sophisticated characteristics.
Oh, that's incredible.
It must feel great to, to be able to run a company that has such
benefits to the environment, right?
That has such like, like, it must make you feel good, like to do this.
Especially when you're, you're able to find something new and have a new partner
to be like, oh, okay, this is great.
Are you always, you and your team, are you guys always thinking of different
companies that you can partner with based on like the material that they have and
like, oh, if we had this material, like if we had this waste of like, if this
running shoe, you know, goes to waste this, like what's in it will really
help us make, you know, such and such.
So I would say like, do you guys always think about that inverted.
Okay.
And what you said, right?
Oh, okay.
When we were at the beginning of the worm poop days, that's how we thought, yeah,
we wanna make x What do we need right now?
We think, what are the things that, uh, what are the waste problems?
How do we set up a program on that waste problem?
And then what can happen to it to make sure that it continues to flow?
So the, the logic shifted in our early days, it was what do we wanna
make and what do we need to, yeah.
What are things that are creating waste issues and how can we
collect them and make sure that something new is made from them?
It shifted.
Yeah.
It looks in the surface identical, right?
But it's what you know, which is, uh, what is the tail that
wags the dog, if you will.
Yeah.
And in our world today, it's about there is this, whatever
it is, there is a waste issue.
How do we help bring solution to that issue using the
power of business to do it?
So, so you're at a point of like, how do we make the biggest impact to Yes.
Waste systems, like, you know, in terms of recycling, let me ask you this.
Yeah.
And, and this is, and I don't know if you have an answer to this because
it, you know, this would solve a lot, obviously we can't get it.
But imagine if we could go out and, uh, you know, and like
microplastics is probably the biggest problem in the ocean right now.
Massive.
It's like a soup, right?
As you know.
Yes.
Um, if we could dredge, or not dredge, but like net, like a, a water column mm-hmm.
And collect, you know, say tons and tons and tons of microplastics.
Yeah.
Is that something that you'd be like, okay, so here's the, you know, somebody's
willing to do this if we can go out and not that it'll solve the waste problem.
Yeah.
But we could at least recoup some of it or have a, a reason to recoup.
Yes.
And mind you, it would probably be extremely expensive with boats
and everything like that, but.
How do we bring, make, like how do we take this out to make a, a valuable product?
Can you make products from microplastics, I guess is the question?
Yes.
The answer is yes.
Right.
Okay.
So not only have we been able to take microplastics and recycle them into
new materials we've done with the world wildlife and we did a massive project in
our Japanese division around ghost nets.
Where collecting ghost nets Yes.
And turning them into new products.
We did, uh, uh, uh, a big thing with head and shoulders where we released a head and
shoulders bottle made from beach plastic.
We've done a lot, you know, of these sort of activities.
Um, they can all be done.
Mm-hmm.
What's the white elephant in the room in this example is something like the soup
of microplastics that is contaminated all of our, uh, aquatic systems.
Right?
Uh, there is not, uh, the money flow attached to cleaning that up is negligible
relative to the size of the issue.
Yes.
It would be trillions of dollars to clean that up and because.
No one knows the genesis of that microplastic.
Like did it come from a chip bag or did it come from a soda bottle?
Or where did it come from?
The stakeholders to fund don't, don't feel that responsibility.
Right.
Um, you know, to do so, or don't feel that if they invest that much
money into it, they're gonna somehow, you know, get some value out of it.
That's enough to, you know, to, to blend to the size of the issue.
Yeah.
That's the big issue in, in, uh, in, in the whole ocean plastic space.
Right.
The other key issue is the impact is bigger the more we go upstream.
So for example, it's the most expensive per se, ton of plastic to clean
up, uh, uh, uh, the microplastics.
Yes, it is slightly less expensive to clean up the floating
fractions that may be at the top.
You'll notice that a lot of the ocean cleanup projects that are out there and
they're all doing phenomenal work, they're more thinking about the stuff at the top.
Mm-hmm.
Because you can get more kilos out per dollar.
Right.
Gotcha.
Um.
And 95% of ocean plastic is the soup.
Below 5% or so is the stuff floating at the top, which we get
all the visuals from the photos.
Mm-hmm.
So one step more upstream, which is like the work of our foundation is
to not collect it in the ocean, but collect it in the canals and waterways,
but before it ends up in the ocean.
Yeah.
And then of course that's, that's even more affordable.
'cause you know, it's easier to do that where you have, like in
Thailand, what we do in Bangkok is I have a lot of like river traps.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Uh, that are somewhat connected to land and then into the river that skim it off.
We can very easily drive a vehicle, empty it out versus
doing all that through boats.
Yeah.
And then, and so what you'll notice, and then as you go further upstream.
It's even more cost effective to, you know, to collect it
before it ends up in the river.
Of course.
And the object, uh, and that's not just on the collection cost, but also
on the val of, of the cost you have to spend to process versus what, um,
what you can sell it for at the end.
Because the, to process, let's say the, the most hardest stuff,
like the true microplastic soup is exceptionally expensive.
'cause it's filled with salt and algae and all this stuff, and
the output is very low grade.
Right?
Right.
So, 'cause remember the costs are collection and processing minus value.
Yeah.
And that equation is the worst for microplastics.
That's it.
It's a multi-trillion dollar issue.
Mm-hmm.
Now.
You know, I think my theory on this, by the way, uh, is
that in the end it'll be okay.
Mm-hmm.
All of this, because the world is phenomenal at inventing
digestive systems for everything.
Now, I don't know if you know the story of coal, but that's like
a great example of this, right.
You know, um, what was it like trees emerged onto, onto the
earth, but there was no fungus or bacteria or, uh, digestive systems
to digest the trees when they died.
So what happened?
The trees died and just stayed on land.
Yeah.
Enough of these piled on top of each other and pressurized, and
that's how coal got created.
Right.
But coal was only created for about a 50 to a hundred million year span,
because after about 50 to a hundred million years, the nature evolved
its digestive system for trees.
And now no tree produces coal because it will rot and Yeah.
Uh, decompose before ever.
It has an opportunity to be pressurized into, into coal.
And I think.
Over that same timeframe, the earth will clean itself up.
It will naturally evolve digestive systems as we see certain bacteria
eating plastics and so on.
It'll just take a hundred million years.
Mm-hmm.
And a huge amount of damage will have been produced, you know, uh, uh, you
know, in that, in that timeframe.
I think that's why the challenge is on humanity.
Right.
I think for us, I think our key challenge is can we rise above sort of animalistic,
you know, tendencies to curb consumption?
'cause that's very basic, animalistic, you know, sort of tendency.
Yeah.
And can we clean up our own mess and not rely on some other system to clean it up?
And let's note that neither of those are animalistic tendencies, right?
Mm-hmm.
When an animal poops in the forest, it's not gonna bother cleaning it up.
No.
You know?
No.
Uh, if it, if it dies in the forest, it's not gonna clean up the body.
Right.
Another one, you know, and it cannot control its appetite.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
That's so cool.
I, I, I think it's, uh, you know, interesting, like you've already
talking about prevention of getting pla like plastic into the ocean.
Uh, you know, you talk about TerraCycle already has
systems, uh, was it in Bangkok?
Is that what you mentioned?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
In Bangkok.
Now, obviously we can't have systems everywhere.
Yeah.
It's, it's difficult 'cause it's, it's a huge investment.
So did you just, like, does TerraCycle choose based on where the investment's
willing to be made at this point?
Yeah.
Is that, is that, I mean, simple, simple.
Uh, I think of two parts where we react and where we invest.
Right?
Right.
So the answer, why are we in Thailand doing that work?
Because that's where we got investment to do it, right.
If the, if the capital that emerged said to us, we care about
Indonesia, then we'd be there.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
We really, because the problem is the same, doesn't matter, you know, it's
a, it's a floating piece of garbage.
One is the same as the other, the negative externalities.
But then the other part is where we choose to invest and
our biggest investment to date.
And we've put about, you know, uh, $50 million into this.
So for our size, that's a huge number has been in how do we bring out reuse?
Mm-hmm.
Because recycling is a solution to the symptom of waste, but it's not
solving waste at the root cause.
It is not eliminating the idea of waste.
And if you think about it, right, like back before the 1950s when we cobbled our
shoes and darned our socks and mended our clothing and all this stuff, we also, you
know, our soda was in reusable bottles.
Our motor oil was in reusable bottles.
Um, every, you know, like everything was much more repair, reuse based.
And we believe that is what we need to return to.
Yeah.
We, we can only do so though by matching the convenience and
affordability of disposability or.
It will always be something we aspire to, but never do.
You know?
Yeah.
We read the article about it, we listen to the podcast about it.
We're like, how cool is that?
But then we still shop normally when we're at our local Walmart, you know?
Right, right.
Um, and that's what we're really focused on.
And for us, you know, reuse has, it's been challenging.
You know, we ran pilots in, uh, uh, Canada, the us, uh, uk, Japan, France,
with the world's biggest retailers, biggest brands, and it really struggled.
But in France, it's taken off.
You know, today you can go into almost any major French supermarket nationally.
400 different products are available to you in fully reusable packaging
through our system, like your Nutella or your whatever, shampoo
or, uh, you know, whatever it may be.
And you buy it, you pay a deposit.
When you're done, you drop it off, it gets cleaned, filled back
up, and sold to someone else.
Why do you think it worked in France, but not say in Canada?
I, I can tell you crystal clear.
Regulation.
Yeah.
In France there's the right regulatory environment.
And the good news is Western Europe, UK Yeah.
Are, uh, are, are, are enabling that same regulatory environment.
Gotcha.
Uh, so we're gonna see the expansion go in that region.
And what the regs are doing is enabling carrots and sticks.
The, the, the stick is, they are mandating it in 2027.
French supermarkets must dedicate five to 10% of their floor
space to reusable offerings.
Okay.
Which is huge.
Yeah.
But they're also giving carrots right now, the, uh, EPR or extended producer
responsibility assistance, that's it.
The packaging taxes on packaging that's produced has to dedicate 5% of its, uh,
revenue, which is about a hundred million dollars, uh, in funding to subsidize
reuse systems until they get bigger.
Right.
And that is the role of regs because in the end there are, I, I sort of view two
types of sustainability activities that a, that a, that an organization can do.
Right.
Or anyone, probably even an individual.
There is the ones that just save us money.
Um, Hey, turn off your light bulbs when you leave your home.
Yes, yes.
Um, put your air conditioning thermostat down when there's no one there.
Um, drive an electric car and don't pay for petrol, you know, or gas.
Right.
Those things are, are cost savings that are synonymous with sustainability.
'cause you're just being smarter with resources.
Mm-hmm.
Everyone should do that.
Oh my God.
Like, but that's not true sustainability.
That's just being not, uh, you know, uh, like, like not being
wasteful, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like just using resources, uh, without wasting them.
Yeah.
The real sustainability questions, I think are the ones that, uh, require
sacrifice, that require us to stop doing something we like to do, you know?
Yes.
Like, um, let's not eat animal protein.
Yes.
Let's not eat big bodies.
Thinking of aquatic examples.
Let's not eat, uh, endangered species.
Mm-hmm.
Let's not eat big bodied fish that are gonna go extinct.
Uh, yeah.
Let's, you know what I mean?
Those are sacrifices.
Mm-hmm.
And the sacrifice.
Is where regulation needs to come.
Yeah.
Because that's the only way at scale things will change.
You're always gonna find the person who, you know, like does
it or organization who leans in.
But to really do it at scale, that's regulation.
And we heard from so many retailers and brands, you know, in the markets we
tested that did not proceed, uh, that hey, um, you know, we know it works.
Consumers, there's no issue.
But we don't wanna take on the extra work of reuse until it's, uh, mandated
because it is extra work, even in the simplest of models like our loop model,
because instead of getting your packaging brand new from a packaging manufacturer,
it's coming in having been used.
So you have to spend a little more effort designing it mm-hmm.
So that it, it can come back and not break.
And you have to put in a little bit of extra effort into, um.
Uh, doing health and safety checks on it when it, you know, comes in.
Right.
And we're doing and reuse baby food, for example.
So, and you don't know where that baby food jar went when it
went out there into the universe.
So you have to have some muscle.
Yeah.
Which is by definition, extra effort to make sure that package doesn't have micro
s on it and has been safely cleaned.
Right.
And that extra effort is the sacrifice, if you will.
And that's where regulation is really valued.
And I, I really highlight this 'cause you know, the world is going into a very
aggressive deregulation, uh, uh, moment.
This, this is really interesting, especially like the loop model.
I remember when Loop came out, didn't it have.
Was, and, and, uh, maybe I'm confusing this, but wasn't it, they, they almost
had a model where they can send it to your home specific products in a bottle, right?
Is that the same?
Well, type of, that's the same company, right?
It might be.
So just to be clear, right.
So when we first started, this was 2019, uh, yeah.
What we did is we went to all the major brands and said, Hey, let's you know,
please put your packaging, so like Doss to Tide laundry detergent, like
we got everybody, which was phenomenal.
Yeah.
I remember that.
Then, then we went to the retailers like Loblaw in Canada, Walmart in the US Yes.
And all the other likes.
And they said to us, before we put this on shelf, we need to
know that our consumers like it.
So we told them, look, we'll launch it as an e-commerce model.
We'll brand it Loblaw in Canada or Walmart in the US or Tesco
in the uk, whatever, and let's prove that your consumers like it.
Yeah.
And that, so we started as an online model to learn it worked.
Then we said to everyone, let's now move in store.
Right.
'cause we don't wanna be the retailer.
So we shut down the online models everywhere.
We moved to in-store pilots, like, you know, a dozen stores
here, a dozen stores there.
Yeah.
And honestly, everywhere it worked.
But then when we pushed to scale and said, look guys, can we now go from a dozen
stores to like hundreds and hundreds?
Yeah.
That's where really, you know, like the wheat and chaff separated and everywhere.
But France, they said we're happy to keep doing pilots until regulations
come, but they're not here today.
Mm-hmm.
And in France, 'cause the regs are there, it exploded.
So once they're mandated to do it, they'll do it.
Yeah.
But if they're not mandated to do it, like why even if, if they're not mandated
to, what's the harm in doing it for them?
It's easy.
Um, every organization, and there's nothing wrong with this.
So what we teach our team, 'cause you will, it'll feel wrong when I say it,
but the number one lesson we teach, you know, folks who join TerraCycle is learn
how the chess pieces on the chess board move and don't just understand how they
move, empathize with how they move.
Like a funny story is my, uh, uh, 5-year-old, he likes playing chess, but
he's offended by how the pond moves.
He doesn't get, why does it only attack left to right?
Why does it only move one step forward Except the first move?
He goes, that's so screwed up.
And he's really upset about that, but because of that, he never wins.
Right?
Right.
If he not only accepted that it moves in a certain way, but empathized, you know,
really like was on the same page that this is awesome how it moves, then he could
have a really good chance of winning.
Yeah.
And so how do corporates move?
It's a simple thing that starts, that is the bounding movement.
The bounding movement is make the most amount of money with
the least amount of effort.
Now you see how that sounds wrong, by the way.
Right.
The amount of effort.
Yeah, I get it though.
But I get it.
It's the way, it's the way water flows.
It flows in that direction.
Right.
And so why is reuse resisted is because a, a system where you have to design and
deal with the package coming back is by definition always some extra work cost.
Versus a system that's linear and you never have to worry
about the thing coming back.
And no matter how much you simplify it, it will never be as easy as a linear system.
Right, right, right.
Wow.
It just cannot, I mean, even in places by the way, where like reuse has been
so big, like beer kegs, you know what the biggest trend in beer kegs are now?
Single.
Use beer kegs.
Single use beer kegs.
Oh yeah.
It's massive.
Massive.
When you get a chance, look it up online.
But basically, you know, beer kegs are highly returnable, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's what you think.
But a lot of companies figured out that that's a hassle for the bars.
So they make 'em single use and they're just, they, they're, they look like
a beer keg, but they're like plastic, whatever, and they just chuck 'em
in the dumpster when they're done.
And why are they popular?
They're easier.
It's just convenience.
Yeah.
So when, when you look at trying to disrupt the market, because you guys
are disrupting the market in terms of like how people think of waste.
It requires, sometimes it requires behavior change.
Like even my example of our bond, it requires me to collect these, these
items and then bring them into, to, uh, you know, in this case it's, it's, um,
uh, oh, what's the name of the place?
Uh, the, the, the, it's not Purolator.
It's, um, no, like a, like a shipping UUPS or something.
Ups.
Yeah.
And it, you know, requires me to just kind of go outta my way, which is like,
to be honest, it's not that big of a deal, but it's a change of behavior
that a lot of people probably Yes.
Wouldn't, it's an extra want to do, right?
Yeah.
So how does TerraCycle combat that, like a behavior change?
That's an excellent question.
So the way we do it is, is it's three, three very clear phases.
The first is the most unintuitive.
We want you to change your behavior as least little as possible.
Okay.
Like in Loop for example, we were just talking about our, our uh,
internal sort of moniker, right?
Is we need reuse to feel like disposability in every way.
Yeah.
One simple example of that is in our return bins, when you return the
reusable packages, you can return them and put 'em in one at a time.
You certainly can, but we also give you a reusable garbage bag that you can
just throw 'em all into and drop it off like a bag of garbage and then we will
check in everything inside for you.
So for the first part of behavior changes, don't change the behavior.
'cause it's hard, right?
It is hard.
Yes.
So make it as little as possible then, and the, and the answer
to that is make it feel as much like what you do today, right?
Right.
Then it's about, um, so once you've done that and made it convenient, as convenient
as absolutely possible, then the other two things you can add on that will get you
to do something greater than no behavior change is incentive and excitement.
And excitement.
You can view as a type of incentive, but there's sort of
three forms of incentive, right?
That get you going One.
Is the baseline, which is, it's better.
You're doing something noble.
You're helping, you're, you're, you know, it's like volunteering somewhere.
It's doing good, right?
Mm-hmm.
And that is an incentive that really matters, interestingly, more to women
than men, and especially more to women that care about other life forms
in the order of plants, pets, and then, uh, interesting children ing.
Yep.
Interesting.
Um, that's why the worst for the, uh, planet demographically
speaking are single men.
Right?
Right.
Um, so, you know, both of us were that at some point or are, you know.
Yes.
Um, then the other form of incentive, after doing the right thing, which is a
powerful one, mine, uh, very much Yeah.
Is economic incentive.
Maybe I give you, so in the, in the reuse model, it's, you
get a deposit back, right?
Mm-hmm.
You get money back.
Mm-hmm.
And what's cool is that, for example, in France, when you get that money
back, the product is cheaper than the disposable version, right?
Yeah.
So economic and economic incentive could be derivatives, it could
be like coupons on something.
It could be other things, but some form of economic incentive.
And then the third incentive, which is unintuitive, is.
Happiness, right?
Happiness is different than doing the right thing.
So what I mean by this is we did a study where we put in, uh, busy train
stations in, uh, New York, uh, like Grand Central Station, these sort
of places, recycling bins and trash bins beside each other, well labeled.
Mm-hmm.
And we saw how many people put something obviously recyclable,
like a soda bottle in the right bin, and there's no extra hassle.
They're literally beside each other.
50% didn't do it correctly.
Okay.
So then we changed something, just happiness.
We put a little sound detector into the recycling bin so that when you put
something in the bin, it would play you back a sound effect, like an infinite
drop or an an applause or whatever.
Some fun.
It went to 95%.
Correct?
Yeah.
And we even notice people going out of their way to pick up a bottle that wasn't
theirs, to put it in the bin to get, just to hear the sound, sound, happiness.
And I wanna say happiness is different than, um, than doing the right thing.
Those are two different things, right?
Yeah.
Because like the doing the right thing sometimes is harder.
Yeah.
We, we almost think of it as harder.
Yeah.
Like I have to eat better, to be healthier, but that's
sometimes harder than just eating.
Like, you know, the, the stuff that's bad for me eat, like,
I think it tastes better.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And it's almost like, uh, like, like doing the noble thing is different
than just smiling, you know?
And it's those three things.
Like, you know, you give economic benefit, you give happiness and you
give, um, you know, this, you know, doing, doing the right noble thing.
That's really, really interesting.
It's, it is interesting.
I, uh, my daughter's going to University of Guelph.
It's her first year.
Yeah.
This year.
We're taking her, uh, in two days.
Nice.
We went to visit the campus.
Yeah.
And, uh, at the campus, they actually had this device.
So you have the, your bins, there's like four different bins.
And then they had a TV with a camera.
Mm-hmm.
And you, all you had to do was put your item that you want to throw
out in front of the camera and it would tell you what bin it would go.
Oh, thats cool.
That's cool.
Right?
That's really cool.
Like you think, how come we don't have that anywhere else?
Like, like why is this not all over the place?
It costs money.
It costs money, but such an interesting way Yeah.
Of disposal.
But I really like the sound because everybody loves sound.
It could be music, it could be anything, anything.
And once you get in the right bin and you can hit that right sound,
you're almost gamifying in a way that's a big part of happiness.
We do a lot of gamified collection bins.
We've done these at like the Super Bowl and other places where like,
imagine like an arcade room, but the machines, the, the thing you play with
is a used aluminum can or used PET bottle and that is your token to play.
Like that is what you play with.
That's so, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Let me ask you this.
Yeah.
You know, you talk about the, the, the first thing was make it easy, like make it
like, so it's like your regular routine.
So normally every Monday I put out my garbage or recycling depending on the
day, uh, at the, at the edge of my curb.
Has there been a model for Loop to.
Go.
I know it's more expensive.
Yeah.
But to go and, and have a service to Well pick that up.
Yeah.
It's a great question.
So I'll uh, I'll answer it this way.
TerraCycle has a model like that.
We call it TerraCycle Home.
Yeah.
In the us I just know that number.
It's, it's available to 8% of the public today.
'cause we set up a geography at a time.
Yeah.
But basically it's curbside and it actually gets cheaper.
Uh oh, interesting.
So, and that's be, but we have to get the density of enough people doing it.
That's why I just can't launch it.
National.
We have to go like zip code by zip code by zip code, which makes sense.
Like pilot, but basic.
Yeah.
You get these, um, like zero waste bags.
You fill it up with a certain waste stream and then you put it on the
curb and it gets picked up by, uh, a local waste management company
and then it comes, uh, comes to us.
So we are certainly doing that on the recycling side.
Yeah.
But again, it's limited to where, where it's available.
You can go to our website and, and see.
But on the reuse side, 'cause that was your question there.
What we found is if we can get to 10% of the public using a loop type service,
we can enable, uh, curbside pickup.
And then becomes all about it is all about buying into the system and
getting people to buy into the system.
Yes.
Because if you get enough people doing it, you can run a route.
Yeah.
Of course.
That, uh, becomes economically efficient.
Now you, you've, like, TerraCycle has created like an opportunity, uh, not
only from a, you know, selling new products and, and collecting waste.
So you're having that opportunity of reducing waste and making it to another
product and selling it and making you, I assume you guys make money on
the products that you sell mm-hmm.
In the various, kind of, in the various kind of ways.
And you're, and you're a profitable company.
Um, it seems like there's a lot of opportunities in this space in the
waste and to, to creation to this space.
Like, for instance, having a, a, a delivery service or pickup service, like
in a different country or like a company saying, Hey, let's partner and we'll
do here in Canada, you know, a system where we're gonna try and get a, like a
region and we'll do the pickup and then we'll send it to you and, you know, work
something out with that kind of way.
Yeah.
Is, is this like an opportunity where it can create jobs, create,
you know, on, you know, a new set?
Like, like Yes.
Launch a new set of entrepreneurs and businesses?
Yeah.
I guess the question is, if it is, why haven't people taken advantage of that?
Because other than yourself of course.
No, no.
It's what we talked about at the top.
You're absolutely right about all of it.
Yeah.
It's very blue ocean it, and it's also very fulfilling to solve.
Right, right.
Uh, you said, you know, you mentioned that earlier, it's like, it's great to
work at a purpose-driven company, right?
Yeah, for sure.
It's because waste is the opposite of sexy.
Yeah.
It is super unattractive.
It is not just shitty, smelly, nasty, metaphorically.
It is in the flesh, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Um, I always make a funny joke about this.
So imagine if you took the human body and then as a metaphor to business.
What I mean by that is our immune system would be the healthcare business, right.
Our brain would be the IT business.
Right?
Right.
You know what I mean?
Like, and you can put a metaphor, right?
Yeah.
What would be the garbage business?
Your butt.
Yeah.
The thing that is, you know, the, the, the least attractive part of the whole body.
Yeah.
Right.
But, but again, like, you know, it's, it's kind of funny you mentioned it
that way 'cause I, I see like from a, a psychological point of view, people are
like, well, hold on a second, I don't want deal with that crap because literally
that's what we're talking about here.
However, if it can reduce the amount of waste Yeah.
By a certain amount.
Even if you measure it by that amount.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh, gamify it for your own company.
Mm-hmm.
To say like, Hey, we've reduced amount, just like a lot of plastic
pollution companies, like Four Oceans will say we've picked up.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, this amount of Absolutely.
Yeah.
It seems like they take off pretty well and people like it.
They like seeing the videos, they like seeing how they do things are made.
I would say Alex of Four Ocean.
I mean these guys, it's a very small community or boy on Yeah,
we interviewed him last year.
He's a great guy.
Yeah, he's great.
These guys are awesome.
And, and they were able to hit like a nerve on that, like
really brilliantly, you know?
Yes.
I think Alice did it really well with the bracelets, you know, at Four Oceans.
Yeah.
I think Boyan did it incredibly well with the ocean cleanup project.
Right.
And the, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and all that.
Um, but for every one of them or me, there is like a thousand
guys who try it.com Right.
For the reason I said.
Right.
Because yes, you're seeing the polished success story.
Yeah.
But going out and doing the cleanups Alex does is treacherous.
Yes.
You know, it is, uh, yes, it shows up nice in a marketing video, but
it is not something the average person wants to sign up for.
That's true.
True.
It reaps.
It's true.
It's gross.
It's, yeah.
And that's the thing on waste is it is.
You know, it is that, and that's why it is generally
unappealing to an average person.
You know, I give this, um, standing lecture at NYU every year.
I've been doing that for 20 years to the inbound class at Stern.
And it's just 'cause it's a big audience size.
Right?
Yeah, for sure.
That's why I mention it here.
And the point is, I asked this big group of kids who here aspires at all
to even explore a career in waste.
And honestly, in 20 years, not one hand has ever gone up, but you'd
ask them, how many of you guys wanna be in the entertainment industry?
Yeah.
Or some other, significantly more sexy industry.
It's like you get meaningful participation Of course.
And that's an opportunity to anyone hearing this, it's that like you can
really, you know, do something where there's not a lot of competition.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, it's very meaningful.
Um, uh, you know, and there's not a lot of people playing in it, and it's a shame.
I mean, it's why, for example, we set up our offices the way we do.
If you Google TerraCycle offices, you'll see like it's really bright
or we're majority female as a, as an organization of our five,
500 team members, all this stuff.
It doesn't feel like a garbage company because we wanna show
that it can be exciting, it can be something that is totally unexpected.
Yeah.
And sometimes you gotta get smelly.
Sometimes you gotta get dirty when you like Yeah, you do, but no one
likes an it an easy thing to clean up.
Right, right, right.
It's just not something that anyone looks forward to.
No, no, but it's also, you can you, with the results, like even that TerraCycle
has done, and you guys have done it over 25 years, and I'm sure, you know, you've
had your own, you know, set of problems and going up and down in terms of, of
growing a company in, in today's world.
Uh, but you've, you've been able to accomplish a, a hell of a lot,
including employing for over 500 people in your companies, uh, worldwide.
Which, which I, I, I highly, you know, uh, respect and, and, and give you
props for, because that's something that, you know, you don't see every day.
But also with the purpose of reducing waste and making it to something else.
Because there are a lot of people who will say, well, we shouldn't be, um, you
know, we shouldn't be recycling things.
We should be reducing our.
They're right.
And they're right.
They're right.
Yeah.
But what do you do with the waste that's around instead of
just putting it into a landfill?
You gotta do something with it.
Something That's right.
And if you can do something with it that's purposeful, then you can
do a really good job in doing that.
Um, you know, Tom, this has been great.
Uh, we could talk for, for hours.
Yeah.
Last question I wanted to, to ask and, and please take your time in answering it.
You have the, the website's.
Great.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna have people, you know, to, to look at the, the website.
How would you suggest for the people listening to this, I have
a lot of people who want to do something for the environment.
Yes.
And what would you suggest how they can get involved with TerraCycle
and some of the programs with TerraCycle to, to Absolutely.
To minimize their, their behavior change.
Yeah.
No.
Well, thank you.
So, so the uh, uh, the easiest thing to do is go to the website terracycle.com.
Yeah.
When you get there, you're gonna see in the recycling areas, 'cause
that's where you can really work with us anywhere in the world.
Uh, again, reuses right now, France only recycling is where you can
really work with us anywhere.
You're listening to this.
First check out the free programs.
Okay.
These are programs like your Arbon program that you mentioned?
Yeah.
Where there's no cost.
Yeah.
We pick up the waste, we process it.
That's because sponsors are paying for it.
Gotcha.
And in many cases it raises money for schools or charities of your choice, you
know, and many programs, donations are given, not all of them, but, but many.
We've donated out about $20 million to date in these forms of, uh, donations.
So that's how you begin with us.
It's come in, recycle, and then if you wanna do more and you don't see a free
program, there's a paid solution for just about everything, uh, available as well.
And you can buy one of our zero waste boxes, uh, or zero waste bags and
recycle almost anything you'd like.
Yeah.
With that said, though, there's one step before you should do anything
with us, which is the biggest message I can leave is the most powerful
thing we do in shaping the world.
What we buy and what we don't buy.
I think it's the most fiercely democratic action.
Let's remember.
Mm-hmm.
How often do we get to vote?
Like once every four years.
And many of us don't even have the privilege of voting 'cause maybe we're
too young or not a citizen or whatever.
Right.
Um, we vote for what we for the future, uh, with what we
buy and what we don't buy.
And let's just next time we shop, 'cause we all shop, shop this way.
Imagine everything you buy two will appear tomorrow.
One to replace the one you bought and one to signify the trend and one less
will appear of everything you didn't buy.
There's nothing to replace, but there's a negative trend.
Yeah.
Will you shop differently?
Yeah.
I like that.
So whatever you buy will double.
Yes.
Whatever you don't buy will actually lessen.
Yeah.
I like that.
And like, you know what the crazy part, it's exactly what happens.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
It's true.
There's no metaphor here.
It's like straight up what happens.
Yeah.
But it's, it's, it's training your, your mind to think about that every
time you make a purchase that we make.
'cause we are voting blindly.
It all, we are voting without realizing that is what's happening.
Yeah.
I think that's a, that's a, that's a great thing.
Uh, and, and also like from a, that's from an individual standpoint, there
are a lot of businesses, you know, like even my company, like the company that
I work for, you know, we have, you know, mixed recyclables and garbage, but a
lot of times, like in the, the city that I live in, you know, there may not be
like a recycling program for businesses that may not come and pick it up.
Yeah.
You mentioned some of the paid versions, like there's a, a zero waste box.
Can you just talk a little bit of before we go about how that works?
Yeah, absolutely.
So in the paid solutions, and we are half B2B, half B2C, so we do tons
in facility recycling, you know.
Okay.
Whether it's hazardous materials like light bulbs, batteries, electronic waste,
all the way to, um, uh, not hazardous.
Latex gloves and uh, personal protective equipment and all this stuff.
Mm-hmm.
So you just go to our website, you type in the waste stream, uh, into
the search bar, and you're gonna see if there are free solutions.
You'll see those.
Totally use those.
Yeah.
If not, you're gonna see paid solutions, which we call our zero waste boxes.
Basically you can buy zero waste box for just about anything, and they go as small
as a little pouch, as big as a pallet.
So every size you can imagine.
And uh, you, uh, you, you receive the device, you fill it up, the cost already
includes us picking it up from you so you, you know, you can put it into a UPS or if
it's a pallet, we pick it up with a truck.
Um, and then everything inside gets recycled and the cost of the box
is basically whatever it costs us to get you a box, pick it up full,
recycle everything inside, minus what the resulting materials are worth.
Okay.
That's how we, how the prices, uh, uh, come to be.
And through the zero waste box system, you can again, recycle
just about anything you want.
I love that.
Plus it's great for your employees.
Like to know that gets.
Yeah, I think that's fantastic.
It's a really easy sustainability solution for a small business.
Like if you're a coffee shop, imagine the value of suddenly
offering coffee bag recycling, or coffee cup recycling, or organics,
you know, like the coffee grounds.
Yeah.
Right.
Or if you're a automotive shop, what about recycling all the plastic
gloves, you know, or motor oil containers, you know, that, uh, yeah.
That are produced or broken wipers, you know, uh, and whatnot.
Right.
There's something like that everywhere.
Yeah.
You can use that as bit of a selling item.
Be like, Hey, by the way, this is what we do here.
If you wanted to come here, that's Yeah.
Yeah.
If that's important to you.
Yeah.
Like my local swimming pool through TerraCycle does, um,
goggle and bathing, suit recycling.
And that's a draw for them.
You know, like they tell people and people come in just to drop it off, and then
maybe they'll, you know, go for a swim.
Who knows?
Yeah.
Stay for a swim.
It's a great way to bring people in.
That's right.
I love that.
I love that aspect.
Tom, this has been so great.
I'd love to invite you back on, talk more about TerraCycle.
Yeah.
Because I think we just, we're just scratching the surface.
Yeah.
Uh, you have been so, uh, insightful, uh, for a lot of us and motivating for, for
a lot of us who are listening to this.
I know.
For me, definitely.
But I wanna thank you so much, uh, for joining us, uh, on today's episode.
It's been great to have you on.
Well, thank you so much.
I look forward to the next time we cross paths.
I look forward to it as well.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tom, for joining us on today's episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
Such a great talk, such a great interview.
To be able to hear such positive messaging around waste and the fact that there's
so many opportunities around waste and to work within waste and to start
businesses, to handle waste, and to really truly build recyclable materials
or out of like recycling materials to build products for people to consume.
I think this is something that's really interesting.
I think, you know, Tom's right?
He, like a lot of people just don't want to do it because it's stinky and it
could be messy and it could be difficult to work with, but if you have the right
idea, you have the right motivation.
You want reduce waste, this is what we need to do.
And of course, I'm gonna say it again because I know people
are gonna call me out on it.
We still have to reduce the amount of waste that we create.
We have to reduce, as Tom said, when you're looking at buying
something that has waste, there's two things that replace it.
If you buy a bottle, like a pop bottle, soda bottle, or a sugary
drink and a plastic bottle, there's two things to replace that.
But if you don't buy it, it actually reduces the amount that there is.
So that's something to think about when you start purchasing things
and you want to be mindful of that.
And so I think it's a great way to just shift your mind.
A lot of this stuff is just shifting your mind, maybe changing your behavior
just a little bit, or duplicating your behavior and doing something a little
different that really makes a difference.
And I think that's something that I would like to explore a little bit more in
That is how do we change our behavior?
How do we get people to change behavior to be more resourceful?
To be more mindful of how we can live for a better ocean.
So I wanna thank Tom.
I'm gonna go and point people to Terra Cycles website, which is terracycle.com.
I'll put it in the show notes, the link in the show notes, and if you
have any questions or comments, or leave them in the comments below
if you're watching this on YouTube, or you can hit me up on Instagram,
DM me at How to Protect the Ocean.
Or of course, if you go to my website, speak up for blue.com/contact,
you can fill out the contact form.
It goes right to my email and I'll answer you as soon as possible.
I wanna thank you so much for Tom for joining us on this podcast,
and thank you for listening and your insightful questions.
Any concerns or anything, comments, we'd love to hear from you.
I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True North Strong and Free.
Have a great day.
We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.