Terracycle: Recycling Everything from Plastics to Global Waste Solutions

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
How do you feel about recycling?
I've talked a lot about recyclingon this podcast, and you know, I've
talked a lot about it from a benefitstandpoint and also from a not so good
standpoint because we know a lot ofthe items that get recycled within our
area, or maybe we thought were gettingrecycled, weren't getting recycled.
But today on the podcast we have Tom Ske,who is the founder and CEO of TerraCycle.

(00:20):
He is here to talk aboutTerraCycle and how TerraCycle
pretty much recycles anything.
And he says it's based on how muchpeople 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 yourmind about recycling and maybe
participating in some of theseprograms that TerraCycle has to offer.

(00:44):
They're all around the world.
It's a lot of fun.
We're talking about plasticpollution in the ocean.
We're talking about microplastics and howthey could be maybe used and how much it
costs to use something like that, and tomaking 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 episodeof the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lu, and thisis the podcast where you find out

(01:06):
what's happening with the ocean,how you can speak up for the ocean,
and what you can do to live fora better ocean by taking action.
On today's episode, we're gonna be talkingto Tomski, who is the founder and you
know, president and CEO of TerraCycle.
TerraCycle is an organizationthat takes your waste.
It's making waste the hero, as Tomsays, and brings it into a production

(01:29):
line to make different products thatyou will buy or that somebody will
buy and truly recycles these typesof items and also provides ways for
you can recycle pretty much anything.
I think it's really important tohave these types of conversations
to understand that there arecompanies who are out there.
Working in waste and there's so manyopportunities to work in waste, but

(01:49):
people are just not doing the work.
And it's something that hasto be done in the future.
If we wanna truly reduce our waste.
Obviously we have to reduce ourwaste at the point of consumerism.
You know, when we're buyingsomething, 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 havemore waste, we have to be able to

(02:10):
recycle that type of waste as well.
So on both ends, right, we don'twant to just say recycling's the only
way we wanna do it for both ends.
So it's gonna be interesting to seewhat happens with this, but I think it's
something that people are gonna love.
And I hope you enjoy this interviewwith Tomski from TerraCycle.
Enjoy and I'll talk to you after.
Hey Tom, welcome to the Howto Protect the Ocean Podcast.

(02:30):
Are you ready to talk about TerraCycle?
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me.
Awesome.
This, uh, it is great tohave you on the podcast.
This has been, uh, a bucket list of mine.
I've been a big fan ofTerraCycle for a long time.
I'm happy to have you on to be ableto, if not introduce, or just to
kind of let people in behind thecurtain of TerraCycle, what it's all

(02:52):
about, how it came to be, uh, andjust how people can get involved in,
in submitting items and so forth.
And, and I think it's gonna be alot of fun to have to have this
podcast, uh, published for, forthe audience to be able to hear.
Uh, so when we get in, before we getinto 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.

(03:14):
And if you haven't heard of TerraCycle,you know, we've been around now for, uh,
actually next year will be our 25th yearof operation for so a little bit of time.
That's awesome.
I know.
It's amazing how, how timeflies and, uh, we operate all
over the world in 21 countries.
Uh, and the things we do are all about.
Fulfilling our central mission, whichis eliminating the idea of waste.

(03:34):
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 arenot traditionally recyclable.
Uh, we are the world's largestcigarette butt recycler, world's
largest coffee capsule, recycler,hundreds of other waste streams.
Uh, we help companies then maketheir things from waste, uh, from

(03:55):
Olympic podiums to the world's firstshoe from shoes or pen from pens.
And then we really push upstream on howdo we really shift out of just recycling
things to reusing, um, all on this journeyfor how do we solve for the idea of waste.
It's incredible what you guys are ableto do and what you've been able to
do accomplish over the last 25 years.

(04:15):
Um, how, like, how, like, this iswhat 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, peoplecame out, recycling was a big thing, but
then we realized that, oh, wait a minute.
You know, not everything is recycled.

(04:35):
And a lot of things we, we thinkis recycled isn't, but TerraCycle
can kind of recycle stuff that wejust 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 lovedentrepreneurship as a young kid,
you know, like my lemonade stand wasbadass when I was like 12, you know?
Um, I started my first company at 14.

(04:57):
Nothing purposeful, just likea web design company, right?
But still, you know, like I lovethe idea of entrepreneurship.
And I, uh, when I got to college, Ihad this real turning point where one
of the classes I took was Introductionto Economics, like econ 1 0 1.
Yeah.
And the professor gets up opening lecturefirst class first, everything, and
says, what's the purpose of business?
Which is a highly appropriate question.

(05:19):
Yeah.
And long story short, theanswer she was looking for was
maximizing profit to shareholders.
Interesting.
And like that fell flat for me, right?
Yes.
Yes.
It fell flat because there's so manystakeholders the business serves mm-hmm.
That are, that don't give twoshits about profit to shareholders.
How can that be the point?
Right?
Yeah.
And it got sort of this journey goingfor me where I was starting to really

(05:41):
like, like, uh, meditate on this.
And where I landed maybe slightlyutopian, is that maybe profit
is an indicator of health.
So it's critically important.
Right.
Of course.
If your business is notprofitable, 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.

(06:01):
But maybe that then leaves room thatfor what is the actual purpose, right.
Because our purpose on the planetis not to be healthy, but we have
to be healthy to manifest anything.
Right.
Um, is then how does thebusiness, uh, you know, make the
world better in some fashion.
Yeah, right.
In some way.
And that felt much morecomfortable for me.
And then I started thinking, you know,as one does, like where should I focus?

(06:23):
Um, you know, the, the, the honeststory is, uh, my friends, this was
now mind you, like 25 years ago.
So the relationship, the legalrelationship with growing pot
was very different than today.
Yes.
Um, but my friends up in Canadastarted, 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

(06:43):
were working well and they were, when Igot into their, you know, their home and I
asked them like, how did you guys do this?
And they said we were takingorganic waste, feeding it to
worms and using the worm poop tomake the plants, uh, flourish.
That's fantastic.
And that lit the initial spark for meon making the, the topic of interest.
And it's become now a, youknow, life's journey mm-hmm.

(07:04):
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 andthere 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.

(07:26):
Right.
In fact, an interesting thing, 'causeI was drawing, you know, in econ class
is lots of supply and demand curvesand garbage is the only commodity
that you cannot draw on a traditionalsupply and demand curve because it
intersects in the negative quadrant.
In other words, it has monstersupply, but negative demand.
In other words, in Japan for example,the legal definition of waste is

(07:49):
something you pay to get rid of.
Right, right, right.
I mean, it's obvious when it'ssaid, but it's, you know, like
there's this counterintuitive,that's the legal definition.
'cause otherwise, like if Ihave 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 sayI need to pay someone to remove

(08:09):
it, that's when it's garbage.
Right.
That's insane.
You think about that way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, and, and it's not just,that goes on and on, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like, uh, garbage is filledwith these phenomenal an
anomalies, which are interesting.
Mm-hmm.
And if you can learn about them, it reallyhelps suddenly bring out the solution.
So, you know, uh, uh, another example,right, just to sort of give you some more,

(08:31):
is, um, isn't it interesting that the onlyindustry in the world that will legally
possess all of your property one day withno exception, is the garbage industry?
Yes.
Legally possess, not be paid to transport.
Mm-hmm.
Not have some touch onit, but legally possess.
And 99% of what we buy becomesthe property of a garbage company
within the year of purchase.

(08:52):
And for how big of, uh, howbig these statements are.
It's also objectively the least innovativeindustry per dollar of revenue it has.
Why?
Because it's.
Smelly, nasty, gross.
Not metaphorically, butlike 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 modernidea, and I've written books on this

(09:16):
topic, but it's only, uh, it was inventedin 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, fromchimpanzees to, to now, but our outputs
up until the fifties were somethingthat nature has systems to digest.
Yes.
Right?
Yes.

(09:36):
Our chair that you and I are sittingon would've been made from wood.
You could throw it in the forest.
Forest would've no problem with it.
Today, it's probably somepolymer plastic that the forest
is not gonna be so happy with.
Right.
Um, our clothing would've been madefrom what, like cotton wool, maybe silk.
Today 60% of the clothing we wear is somepetrochemical derivative, nylon, latex.
Yeah.
You know, uh, uh, um, different sortof, you know, advanced materials.

(09:57):
And we then exacerbate this byconsuming 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.

(10:17):
Right, right.
And uh, we first started the journey bybasically 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 schooland, you know, off we went.
But we had this big reflection, maybe, Idon't know, like four or five years in.
And we're at that point, like a five,$6 million small worm poop business of

(10:41):
are we gonna really achieve our missionby making products outta garbage?
'cause what we started realizing is wewere trying to make the best product.
And even if we say it must be madefrom waste, we would, as a result.
Be taking certain organic ways tofeed the worms, but not other, we were
taking certain use soda bottles topackage the worm poop, but not others.
Right.
We're picking the best of what istechnically garbage, and then we

(11:04):
would never deal with the bulk of it.
Right.
Right.
Um, and so that createda massive shift for us.
We decided to effectively close downthe 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 welanded on the, you know, where
we are today and off we went.

(11:24):
Yeah.
That's incredible.
And if you think about too, how societyhas 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, yourcomputers, they all lasted a long time.
Yeah.
They all lasted like, especially likethe long items, like the dish, uh,
dishwasher and all that kinda stuff.

(11:46):
You know, you're looking at 25, 30 yearsbefore you're thinking of replacing it.
Now you're probably looking at a lifecycle for those, like a dishwasher.
I remember talking to some peopleand they're like, you're looking at
like three to five years, and as soonas 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 guessit's, that's more of the economy.
They want you to churn out and buy,buy more new things, but that increases

(12:07):
the amount of waste that we produce.
Right.
Massively.
And what's so interesting, you'rereferring like to this concept
of planned obsolescence, right?
Yes.
Um, where things are planned to break.
Because that's betterfor the economy, right.
To, for you to buy a newdishwasher in three years mm-hmm.
Than to maybe repair one in 20 years.
That's the other thing.
Not only is, are all these thingsmade, uh, like much poorer quality.

(12:30):
Now you could arguewhat's the virtue of that?
'cause we're gonna shitall over this for a moment.
So let's talk about the positive, thepositives is that, that dishwasher
is technically cheaper Yes.
Than it was before relativeto your income, right?
Yeah.
Like the amount of labor hoursyou have to put out to get
the dishwasher has gone down.
Yes.
Right.
Um, a good example is like a hundredyears ago, we would, it's 1920s.

(12:52):
We would buy an average of two apparelitems a year and use them for 20 years.
Uh, before disposal.
Today it's 66 apparel items per year wornon average, three times before disposal.
But a key part of this is,that's incredible, right?
It why I bet you a wool sweaterwould've been a lot more labor hours
a hundred years ago than it is today.

(13:12):
Right.
Today it's what, 10 minutes oflabor Back then it could have been
weeks of labor hours that you haveto, uh, earn to spend on that.
Yeah.
And now the planned off lessons thingis so fascinating because I don't know,
uh, it was actually proposed as a lawback in, I think it was in, in, in, in,
in, in the UK at some point when theeconomy was down, it was proposed as
a regulation saying manufacturers musttake back or make break objects in short

(13:38):
period of time to spur the economy, right.
To create more consumption.
It never passed 'cause itsort of grotesque, but it
was proposed in that way.
And I, and then what happened is companiesrealized 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.

(13:58):
Now they've been really disrupted by theLED bulbs, but back in the day when we
would just buy incandescent bulbs, whatwas it, like, 5,000 hours on a light bulb.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
You know how long, when the incandescentbulb was first commercialized,
how long the light bulb lasted.
This is like a hundred years ago.
There's still one burning in aFlorida, uh, uh, uh, firehouse that

(14:18):
has not gone out in a hundred years.
And what happened is the lightbulb manufacturers realized if we
make light bulbs that last forever,we're not gonna sell that many.
Yeah.
So they created a cartel thatpurposefully 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 tounderstand the tension.
Right.
Of uh, because that's the only way onecan then figure out how to solve it.

(14:42):
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 allowsus to buy more things and
convenience in all other ways.
Fast delivery, you know, easy.
Um, mending is less convenientthan buying new, you know, that's

(15:05):
why we don't cobble our shoesor, uh, darn our socks or mm-hmm.
Fix anything anymore.
Right.
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 abusiness point of view.
Right, right.
It just creates this phenomenalexternality, not just of
waste mind you, but like.

(15:25):
Every environmental issue we face.
Yeah.
Climate change, uh, species diversityloss, 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 whatis the World Wildlife Fund said
that we lost 50% of our, uh, speciesdiversity one in the past 50 years.
Yeah.
I bet you that's moreterrestrial than it is aquatic.

(15:46):
Yes.
And I bet you if you wantaquatic it would be worse.
Could be in the nineties.
Yeah, exactly.
Could be in the nineties.
Right.
So all these externalitiesare linked to one thing only.
Yeah.
Us voting for them by buyingthings that create extraction.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah.
And, uh, I think that's the key thingto reckon with in this whole gluttonous
consumption of cheap crap right now.

(16:07):
But with that, like, it's hardto look at the system that we're
in right now and because a lot ofpeople will say like, you know.
I guess the re they, they'll say, firstof all, I guess like we look at this
waste, we, we know that we're in asystem where there's a lot of waste.
Yes.
Um, so, and, and we know recyclingon a, on a grand scale is not

(16:27):
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 alittle differently 'cause you
guys are not just recycling tomake the same products, right?
Like say a a water bottleto back into a water bottle.
You're actually taking it andmaking different products.
Uh, I think remember when I firstdiscovered TerraCycle was like

(16:50):
park benches and things like that?
Yep.
Where did that idea come from?
Like, to be like, oh, we're just gonnamake cr like brand new products from
these, from these like waste items.
Well, if I'm, I, I'm gonna take a stepback 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.

(17:10):
Yeah, please.
That will frame.
Everything we talk about.
Right.
Perfect.
And this was one of those academicthings that, you know, we dove into
when we shifted away from being aworm poop business as to what really
makes something recycled gold.
Right?
Yeah.
Like actually get recycled.
And here is the problem is that wehave a misunderstanding of the system.
That's why it's not whatwe hoped it would be.

(17:31):
We perceive, and this has been, youknow, we've studied this in our consumer
insights department, you know, withconsumers all over the world, everywhere
and unanimously people view recycling as apublic service similar to say healthcare.
Mm-hmm.
Um, or education.
Mm-hmm.
And the concept in healthcare isif, if, uh, if the cure exists
or the therapy exists to helpyou, it will be given to you.

(17:53):
Yes.
You know?
Yes.
Irrelevant of the cost and your income.
It's just, I mean, maybeAmerica's a bit different, but
like everywhere else, right?
Yeah.
You, you know, it's, uh, you, it'salmost like a moral obligation to,
you know, treat whatever is the issue.
Mm-hmm.
And.
The difference though isrecycling is not a public service.
It is carried out unanimously, withno exception by only for-profit

(18:14):
companies everywhere in the world.
There is no law that tellsthose for-profit companies that
they have to recycle anything.
Right?
Right.
They choose what gets recycled.
And so really when you deep go belowthe surface, what makes a cardboard
box or an aluminum can recycled inmost countries that have recycling,
it's not that it's special, it'sbecause it's profitable to recycle.

(18:36):
Mm. And what makes 95% of objects,uh, uh, not recyclable, like, uh,
you know, if we just look at eachother are clothing, the, yeah.
Electronics.
Uh, this pen.
You know, I mean, most things inour, 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.

(18:56):
Interesting.
That's it.
It's just economics.
That's like, another way to think aboutthis is how can you make an object?
Go Circular is, I thinkonly one of two ways.
Imagine if I put an objectin front of you, right.
Either that object has to haveenough intrinsic value in it that
you're like, yeah, thank you forputting this object in front of me.
You know?
Yeah.
If I put a bar of gold in front ofyou, I'm sure you'd be thrilled.
Right.
Or, uh, whatever.

(19:16):
Right.
But if I put something that isn'tvaluable in front of you, well, the
only way to do it is to pay you.
And at some point when I pay youenough, your happiness will get to the
point where you'll happily deal withthat 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 isbroken, it's because they put
things in the recycling bin thatthey hope will be recycled, that

(19:39):
don't, that aren't recycled.
And that's because the wayit's communicated implies that
that'll happen, which is poor.
Mm-hmm.
It's bad framing.
Um, a really good example of thisis, say those clothing bins, because
this is really tied to, you know,pollution in the ocean, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like we put our used clothinginto 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.

(20:01):
Yeah.
And what do we think happens?
We think what happens isour clothing will then be.
Gone to a good use, someonein need will use it.
But here's the reality, right?
That entire business is driven bythe resale value of the clothing.
Mm-hmm.
Period.
Because it costs more to recycle clothingthan the resulting materials are worse.
There's no economics to recycle it.

(20:21):
It is just driven by the resale value.
Now in America, if we put a bunchof used clothing, remember that's
our garbage that we don't want.
Yeah.
Only 1% of it can be resoldin 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 thiswill sort out the brand name goods,
the Patagonia jackets, you know, theLevi jeans that are in good quality.

(20:44):
Mm-hmm.
Ironically, probably shouldn't havebeen thrown into the bin to begin with.
That will get resold at avintage store in the us.
99% gets bailed and sold bythe kilo to emerging countries.
Now, let's say you and I arethe vintage shop, use clothing
shop in, uh, you know, Ethiopia.
Yeah, we're gonna be excitedto buy this stuff 'cause we're

(21:05):
buying clothing by the kilo.
Way cheaper than making way cheaper.
Yeah, yeah.
Way cheaper.
But we're gonna buy at eyes wide openthat about two thirds no one's gonna buy.
Hmm.
But one third they're gonna buy.
And that makes thebusiness economics work.
Yeah.
But what do we do withthat Two thirds We dump it.
And so what I'm trying to highlighthere is that is exactly how it works.

(21:27):
Now the problem is the person puttingit into the goodwill bin, you know,
in Kansas City, you know, uh uh,thinks everything is gonna be reused.
'cause the bin shouldn't justsay, this is a reuse bin.
It should say, if the clothing is has amarket 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 accurateway to describe that process.

(21:49):
And I think that's the essence.
Once, once you view recycling as actuallyjust urban mining for material value,
everything makes sense from there.
That is so interesting and it's, youknow, something we've talked about a lot
on this podcast is, is the fact is likeif it's, if it's recyclable, there's
a demand out there for that product atsome point, whether it's in its true
form or whether it's in another form.

(22:11):
Um, so, so for for TerraCycle, yeah.
When you first came out with this, thisvision to say, okay, we're gonna take
products and we're gonna make anotherproduct out of this, or waste, sorry,
I should say waste from products andwe're gonna make another product.
How did you choose.
The waste, was it waste thatnobody else was gonna take?
Yeah.
Or was it waste that you knew wasgonna fit within a, within like in a,

(22:36):
like would do well in a park bench?
Well, it's a good question, right?
So like when we first began in the wormpoop days, we were a consumer product
company making objects, uh, products fromwaste, from fertilizer to bird feeder,
then later backpacks and whatever.
And there we said, wewanna make a backpack.
What's the right waste to makeit from Maybe we sew together
juice pouches and make a backpack.
So we then started as a classicconsumer good thought process

(22:59):
where the product is the hero.
Yeah.
And what waste inputs canwe make the product from.
Mm-hmm.
When we realized that that is limitedbecause we're gonna pick only the
best garbage, we switched it andsaid the garbage has to be the hero.
And remember the issueis solely economics.
Everything in the world can be recycled.
It.
I've not seen a waste stream.

(23:19):
That cannot be, the only times it cannotbe is if there's a law preventing it.
A bloody glove from an operatingroom 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 coffeecapsule, recycler, and recycling.
A coffee capsule is alwaysgonna come at a cost.
It's never gonna make money.

(23:40):
And that's, again, 95% of goods.
So it, because the money is theissue, what we first said is, let's
go to stakeholders that are willingto pay and fund for recycling to
exist on certain waste streams.
And the intuitive stakeholdercould 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'sconsumed like a, um, a pool may

(24:03):
care about swimsuit and gogglerecycling disproportionately, yeah.
Right.
They're certainly not gonna careabout recycling bicycle helmets.
And so it's about finding thosestakeholders 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 tobaccocompany, it could be a retailer

(24:24):
that might sell cigarettes, it couldbe, uh, maybe a city, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Because they have high rates of litteron these, uh, or other stakeholders.
Then we bring that into our r and dorganization 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'relooking at is can we take the thing apart
and can we reconstitute the materials?

(24:45):
So for example, in cigarette butts,the breakthrough that really helped
enable that was the ability toseparate 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 programand getting it bigger and bigger.
As that happens, we don'tstay there on the process.
We keep trying to refine theprocess to get to the gold standard.

(25:08):
Which is, it goes right backinto what it started with.
That's the endpoint we try to get to.
If there is the appetite from thestakeholders and uh, you know, 'cause that
takes a lot of resource to achieve that.
So we will, you know, let's takeshoe recycling is a good example.
Mm-hmm.
When we first started, we figuredout how can we take the shoe apart,
separate all the components, makesure we can reconstitute those.

(25:29):
And, and there a big breakthroughwas 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 themtogether to create a new leather compound.
Almost like, um, you know, in winecorks you have like a normal natural
cork, but then you may see a. A naturalcork, but it's made from lots of
little pieces like a Birkenstock sole.
Yep.
That sort of effect.

(25:50):
Right.
Okay.
Now, once we had that, then the questionwas how do we go more than that?
And then we started working with shoecompanies 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 highesttechnical achievement, right?
Yeah.
Like that is really tough and requires alot of, that's a lot of research and Yeah.

(26:11):
And a lot of investment on part of thepartner of who like, of course, really
needs to lean in because it's, I can'tdo that without them wanting to lean in.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's sort of the journey we take.
Um, uh, but the, the big whiteelephant in the room is that it's
all about the money flow, right?
Um, someone has to fund it because inparallel to this advancement in, uh,

(26:32):
in all sorts of advanced materialsthat nature doesn't have systems for,
and us consuming quite a bit withinall 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 thingsthere, the, the value that you can
recover intrinsically goes down.
Hmm.
Right?

(26:52):
Yeah.
The thing I'm putting in frontof you looks less, less, less and
less like a gold bar every day.
That's so cool.
That is so cool.
So how do you decide.
What items can be made from thewaste that you're collecting or
even what waste you collect to make?
Like do you still, where doesit, is it like, is it a chicken

(27:14):
and egg kind of situation?
Like what product do youha do you want to make?
And then what waste would be best?
No, it's, there's a, it's, it's actuallyvery linear, so I'll walk you through it.
Yeah.
So the first part is, 'causethe issue is a money flow.
The first question is, whereis their willingness to fund?
So if, for example, we have willingnessfrom a great company like lip rip
curl to fund wetsuit, recycling,then we're gonna focus on wetsuits.

(27:35):
If inversely we can't find anyone towanna fund bicycle helmet recycling,
that won't be the focus because withoutthe money flow, nothing happens, right?
'cause everything costs morethan the results are worth.
So you, you depend on the visionand the effort put willing, being
willing to be put in by a specificcompany or investor to invest in that.

(27:59):
Yes.
In order to even start eventhinking about doing something,
it needs to be some stakeholders.
If you take wetsuits, it couldbe like rip curls a partner.
So it could be the wetsuitmanufacturer, right.
But it could be maybea dive shop, you know?
Right.
It could be a diving coalition.
It could be any stakeholder, but it'sgonna be someone who cares more about
wetsuits than the average bear, you know?
Okay.
Then once, sorry, go ahead.

(28:20):
Go ahead.
No, no, please go ahead.
Well, I was gonna say like, what's, Iwas gonna say that like the next step
is like, are they collecting the wasteor 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 itcosts to collect the waste.
Yeah.
What it costs to convert that intoa sellable material minus what

(28:41):
the sellable material is worth.
Right.
That's the cost.
So then we think throughhow do we collect and.
Collection is not just about how do youcollect as cheaply as possible mm-hmm.
Collection's also about how doyou create as much value for
whoever's paying for it as possible.
So take the, the wetsuit example.
A really good business logic forsomeone like Rip Curl is, wait a

(29:01):
minute, if I offer wetsuit recycling,maybe I run a promotion saying we
rip curl will recycle any brand ofwetsuit, 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 canbuild in some business logic,
the money flow gets bigger.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
And then these programs can getincredibly large, like uh, you know, in
some cases, like in uh, coffee capsulerecycling in Canada, we collect back

(29:24):
30% of what, uh, of what is consumed.
That's amazing.
But it's also one of the bestdrivers of which brand you choose.
Yes.
And those are connected concepts.
'cause money flow comesfrom business in many cases.
Yeah.
So then we think about the collection.
So in that example, the collection forwetsuits would probably be in retailers.
'cause that's where you're gonnamake your next purchasing decision.

(29:44):
Then we also think about how do wemake the collection as convenient
and as affordable as possible?
So it's easy for someone to takepart and it doesn't break the bank.
Right?
Yeah.
So for, yeah, like for, I was gonnasay, 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, whichis like a little green tea extract, and

(30:05):
they come in individual packages, plasticpackages, 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 stuffthat package as fa as much as you can.
You know, you, you, uh, you know, secureit, you zip it up and then you send

(30:28):
it to Purolator and Purolator bringsit over, sends it over to you guys.
And sometimes I'll have like three or fourand 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 thesimplest processes for me.
And then I know that the, the productthat I use is gonna be used for
something better than, what if Ijust threw it out in the garbage?

(30:49):
Exactly right.
Yeah.
So that's a, yeah, and there's dozens ofdifferent methods of collection, right?
Yeah.
It could be what you described,which would be a mail-in model.
It could be publiclocations, like, uh, right.
I think in Canada where somethinglike 50% of all the schools, uh,
uh, uh, like, you know, uh, publicschools, K through 12 schools use
our programs and, and many other.
That's, uh, uh, such examples.
Then we think through, and this goesto your question on what do we make

(31:11):
it is first we have to make sure thatwe 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 thematerials to whoever pays the most.
Yeah.
And to us, it's not, you know, that'sthe 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 thecompany, whether it's Arbon or Rip

(31:34):
Curl or whichever one, and say,now that this is all functioning.
How do we really elevate thewaste and try to get it to go
right back into your system so itbecomes as closed loop as possible?
Yeah.
That may start with deployments,like marketing deployments.
Like with Colgate, we've built, Ithink two dozen playgrounds from
toothpaste, tubes and toothbrushes,or with Procter and Gamble from their

(31:55):
waist, every Olympic podium sincethe Tokyo Olympics and, and so Wow.
Really that's, yeah.
It could be that sort of stuff.
Wow.
But then we say, okay, how dowe get it more into your system?
Maybe then we start making the displaystheir products sit on, or the fixtures
for their stores with the end goal tobe right back into what it began from.
That is so, and that's the journey thatour r and DT team takes over many years.

(32:19):
Yeah.
To make sure that we can formulatethe waste, make it behave in the
way that it needs to, to be ableto create that, that outcome.
Because these products werenever designed with the idea of
being recyclable into themselves.
So your r and d team is, it just consistsof a number of different, like, uh,
engineers and, and product engineersand marketers and, and so forth.

(32:41):
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 inalloys or, or plastics Yeah.
Or polymers or fibers or glass.
We have a whole laboratory, you know, abig one out here where it's, because it's
about the ability to take the, the, thewaste and then process it in a way that
it can be used for a certain application.

(33:03):
Makes sense.
Right.
A very simple example of this would be ifyou collect, let's say potato chip bags.
The color of the plastic at the endthat you get is going to be green.
It's gonna be green, becausewhen you mix all the inks
together, what comes out is green.
It's sort of like when kids havepaint and they mix it all together,
like Play-Doh, it becomes brown.
Yes.
In the world of recycling,green is the brown.

(33:24):
Right.
And now you need to make that colorsomething that someone actually
wants to use in their product.
So that's a very simple example oflike the coloration, but it could be
the how fast the plastic melts, howstrong is it, how bendable is it?
Those are more sophisticatedcharacteristics.
Oh, that's incredible.
It must feel great to, to be ableto run a company that has such

(33:47):
benefits to the environment, right?
That has such like, like, it mustmake you feel good, like to do this.
Especially when you're, you're able tofind something new and have a new partner
to be like, oh, okay, this is great.
Are you always, you and your team, areyou guys always thinking of different
companies that you can partner with basedon like the material that they have and
like, oh, if we had this material, likeif we had this waste of like, if this

(34:12):
running shoe, you know, goes to wastethis, like what's in it will really
help us make, you know, such and such.
So I would say like, do you guysalways think about that inverted.
Okay.
And what you said, right?
Oh, okay.
When we were at the beginning of the wormpoop 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 programon that waste problem?

(34:34):
And then what can happen to it tomake sure that it continues to flow?
So the, the logic shifted in ourearly days, it was what do we wanna
make and what do we need to, yeah.
What are things that are creatingwaste issues and how can we
collect them and make sure thatsomething new is made from them?
It shifted.
Yeah.
It looks in the surface identical, right?
But it's what you know, whichis, uh, what is the tail that

(34:57):
wags the dog, if you will.
Yeah.
And in our world today, it'sabout there is this, whatever
it is, there is a waste issue.
How do we help bring solutionto that issue using the
power of business to do it?
So, so you're at a point of like, howdo we make the biggest impact to Yes.
Waste systems, like, you know, in termsof recycling, let me ask you this.
Yeah.

(35:17):
And, and this is, and I don't knowif you have an answer to this because
it, you know, this would solve alot, obviously we can't get it.
But imagine if we could go outand, uh, you know, and like
microplastics is probably the biggestproblem in the ocean right now.
Massive.
It's like a soup, right?
As you know.
Yes.
Um, if we could dredge, or not dredge, butlike net, like a, a water column mm-hmm.

(35:39):
And collect, you know, say tonsand 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 andnot that it'll solve the waste problem.
Yeah.
But we could at least recoup someof it or have a, a reason to recoup.
Yes.
And mind you, it would probablybe extremely expensive with boats

(36:00):
and everything like that, but.
How do we bring, make, like how do we takethis out to make a, a valuable product?
Can you make products frommicroplastics, I guess is the question?
Yes.
The answer is yes.
Right.
Okay.
So not only have we been able to takemicroplastics and recycle them into
new materials we've done with the worldwildlife and we did a massive project in
our Japanese division around ghost nets.

(36:20):
Where collecting ghost nets Yes.
And turning them into new products.
We did, uh, uh, uh, a big thing with headand 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 inthis example is something like the soup

(36:41):
of microplastics that is contaminatedall of our, uh, aquatic systems.
Right?
Uh, there is not, uh, the money flowattached to cleaning that up is negligible
relative to the size of the issue.
Yes.
It would be trillions of dollarsto clean that up and because.
No one knows the genesisof that microplastic.

(37:03):
Like did it come from a chip bagor 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'tfeel 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.

(37:23):
Yeah.
That's the big issue in, in, uh, in,in the whole ocean plastic space.
Right.
The other key issue is the impactis bigger the more we go upstream.
So for example, it's the most expensiveper se, ton of plastic to clean
up, uh, uh, uh, the microplastics.
Yes, it is slightly lessexpensive to clean up the floating
fractions that may be at the top.

(37:45):
You'll notice that a lot of the oceancleanup projects that are out there and
they're all doing phenomenal work, they'remore thinking about the stuff at the top.
Mm-hmm.
Because you can get morekilos out per dollar.
Right.
Gotcha.
Um.
And 95% of ocean plastic is the soup.
Below 5% or so is the stufffloating at the top, which we get
all the visuals from the photos.

(38:06):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So one step more upstream, which islike the work of our foundation is
to not collect it in the ocean, butcollect 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 todo that where you have, like in
Thailand, what we do in Bangkok isI have a lot of like river traps.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Uh, that are somewhat connected to landand then into the river that skim it off.

(38:28):
We can very easily drive avehicle, empty it out versus
doing all that through boats.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then, and so what you'll notice,and then as you go further upstream.
It's even more cost effectiveto, you know, to collect it
before it ends up in the river.
Of course.
And the object, uh, and that's notjust on the collection cost, but also
on the val of, of the cost you haveto spend to process versus what, um,

(38:50):
what you can sell it for at the end.
Because the, to process, let'ssay the, the most hardest stuff,
like the true microplastic soupis exceptionally expensive.
'cause it's filled with salt andalgae and all this stuff, and
the output is very low grade.
Right?
Right.
So, 'cause remember the costs arecollection and processing minus value.
Yeah.
And that equation is theworst for microplastics.

(39:13):
That's it.
It's a multi-trillion dollar issue.
Mm-hmm.
Now.
You know, I think my theoryon this, by the way, uh, is
that in the end it'll be okay.
Mm-hmm.
All of this, because the worldis phenomenal at inventing
digestive systems for everything.
Now, I don't know if you know thestory of coal, but that's like
a great example of this, right.
You know, um, what was it liketrees emerged onto, onto the

(39:35):
earth, but there was no fungus orbacteria 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 ofeach other and pressurized, and
that's how coal got created.
Right.
But coal was only created for abouta 50 to a hundred million year span,
because after about 50 to a hundredmillion years, the nature evolved

(39:58):
its digestive system for trees.
And now no tree produces coalbecause it will rot and Yeah.
Uh, decompose before ever.
It has an opportunity to bepressurized into, into coal.
And I think.
Over that same timeframe, theearth will clean itself up.
It will naturally evolve digestivesystems as we see certain bacteria
eating plastics and so on.

(40:19):
It'll just take a hundred million years.
Mm-hmm.
And a huge amount of damage will havebeen produced, you know, uh, uh, you
know, in that, in that timeframe.
I think that's why thechallenge is on humanity.
Right.
I think for us, I think our key challengeis can we rise above sort of animalistic,
you know, tendencies to curb consumption?

(40:41):
'cause that's very basic, animalistic,you know, sort of tendency.
Yeah.
And can we clean up our own mess and notrely on some other system to clean it up?
And let's note that neither of thoseare 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.

(41:02):
Right.
Right.
Another one, you know, and itcannot 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 gettingpla like plastic into the ocean.
Uh, you know, you talkabout TerraCycle already has
systems, uh, was it in Bangkok?
Is that what you mentioned?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
In Bangkok.

(41:23):
Now, obviously we can'thave systems everywhere.
Yeah.
It's, it's difficult 'causeit's, it's a huge investment.
So did you just, like, does TerraCyclechoose 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 wherewe react and where we invest.
Right?
Right.
So the answer, why are wein Thailand doing that work?

(41:43):
Because that's where we gotinvestment to do it, right.
If the, if the capital thatemerged said to us, we care about
Indonesia, then we'd be there.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
We really, because the problem is thesame, 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 iswhere we choose to invest and

(42:04):
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 numberhas been in how do we bring out reuse?
Mm-hmm.
Because recycling is a solution tothe 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, likeback before the 1950s when we cobbled our

(42:26):
shoes and darned our socks and mended ourclothing 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 everythingwas much more repair, reuse based.
And we believe that iswhat we need to return to.
Yeah.
We, we can only do so thoughby matching the convenience and

(42:47):
affordability of disposability or.
It will always be somethingwe aspire to, but never do.
You know?
Yeah.
We read the article about it, welisten to the podcast about it.
We're like, how cool is that?
But then we still shop normally whenwe're at our local Walmart, you know?
Right, right.
Um, and that's whatwe're really focused on.
And for us, you know, reusehas, it's been challenging.
You know, we ran pilots in, uh, uh,Canada, the us, uh, uk, Japan, France,

(43:12):
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 almostany major French supermarket nationally.
400 different products are availableto you in fully reusable packaging
through our system, like yourNutella or your whatever, shampoo
or, uh, you know, whatever it may be.
And you buy it, you pay a deposit.

(43:33):
When you're done, you drop itoff, it gets cleaned, filled back
up, and sold to someone else.
Why do you think it worked inFrance, but not say in Canada?
I, I can tell you crystal clear.
Regulation.
Regulation.
Regulation.
Yeah.
In France there's the rightregulatory environment.
And the good news isWestern Europe, UK Yeah.

(43:54):
Are, uh, are, are, are enablingthat same regulatory environment.
Gotcha.
Uh, so we're gonna see theexpansion go in that region.
And what the regs are doing isenabling carrots and sticks.
The, the, the stick is, theyare mandating it in 2027.
French supermarkets must dedicatefive to 10% of their floor
space to reusable offerings.
Okay.
Which is huge.
Yeah.
But they're also giving carrots rightnow, the, uh, EPR or extended producer

(44:17):
responsibility assistance, that's it.
The packaging taxes on packaging that'sproduced has to dedicate 5% of its, uh,
revenue, which is about a hundred milliondollars, uh, in funding to subsidize
reuse systems until they get bigger.
Right.
And that is the role of regs because inthe end there are, I, I sort of view two
types of sustainability activities thata, that a, that an organization can do.

(44:40):
Right.
Or anyone, probably even an individual.
There is the ones that just save us money.
Um, Hey, turn off your lightbulbs when you leave your home.
Yes, yes.
Um, put your air conditioning thermostatdown when there's no one there.
Um, drive an electric car and don'tpay for petrol, you know, or gas.
Right.
Those things are, are cost savings thatare synonymous with sustainability.

(45:00):
'cause you're just beingsmarter with resources.
Mm-hmm.
Everyone should do that.
Oh my God.
Like, but that's not true sustainability.
That's just being not, uh, youknow, 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, Ithink are the ones that, uh, require

(45:21):
sacrifice, that require us to stopdoing 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 fishthat are gonna go extinct.
Uh, yeah.
Let's, you know what I mean?
Those are sacrifices.
Mm-hmm.

(45:41):
And the sacrifice.
Is where regulation needs to come.
Yeah.
Because that's the only wayat scale things will change.
You're always gonna find theperson who, you know, like does
it or organization who leans in.
But to really do it atscale, that's regulation.
And we heard from so many retailersand brands, you know, in the markets we

(46:03):
tested that did not proceed, uh, thathey, um, you know, we know it works.
Consumers, there's no issue.
But we don't wanna take on the extrawork of reuse until it's, uh, mandated
because it is extra work, even in thesimplest of models like our loop model,
because instead of getting your packagingbrand new from a packaging manufacturer,

(46:25):
it's coming in having been used.
So you have to spend a littlemore effort designing it mm-hmm.
So that it, it can comeback and not break.
And you have to put in a littlebit of extra effort into, um.
Uh, doing health and safety checkson it when it, you know, comes in.
Right.
And we're doing and reusebaby food, for example.
So, and you don't know wherethat baby food jar went when it

(46:46):
went out there into the universe.
So you have to have some muscle.
Yeah.
Which is by definition, extra effort tomake sure that package doesn't have micro
s on it and has been safely cleaned.
Right.
And that extra effort isthe sacrifice, if you will.
And that's where regulationis really valued.
And I, I really highlight this 'causeyou know, the world is going into a very

(47:07):
aggressive deregulation, uh, uh, moment.
This, this is really interesting,especially like the loop model.
I remember when Loopcame out, didn't it have.
Was, and, and, uh, maybe I'm confusingthis, but wasn't it, they, they almost
had a model where they can send it to yourhome specific products in a bottle, right?
Is that the same?
Well, type of, that'sthe same company, right?

(47:27):
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 majorbrands and said, Hey, let's you know,
please put your packaging, so likeDoss to Tide laundry detergent, like
we got everybody, which was phenomenal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I remember that.
Then, then we went to the retailers likeLoblaw in Canada, Walmart in the US Yes.
And all the other likes.
And they said to us, before weput this on shelf, we need to

(47:49):
know that our consumers like it.
So we told them, look, we'lllaunch it as an e-commerce model.
We'll brand it Loblaw in Canadaor Walmart in the US or Tesco
in the uk, whatever, and let'sprove that your consumers like it.
Yeah.
And that, so we started as anonline 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 theonline models everywhere.

(48:10):
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 thewheat and chaff separated and everywhere.
But France, they said we're happy tokeep doing pilots until regulations

(48:33):
come, but they're not here today.
Mm-hmm.
And in France, 'cause theregs are there, it exploded.
So once they're mandatedto 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, andthere's nothing wrong with this.

(48:55):
So what we teach our team, 'cause youwill, it'll feel wrong when I say it,
but the number one lesson we teach, youknow, folks who join TerraCycle is learn
how the chess pieces on the chess boardmove 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.

(49:15):
He doesn't get, why does itonly attack left to right?
Why does it only move one stepforward 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 ina certain way, but empathized, you know,
really like was on the same page that thisis awesome how it moves, then he could

(49:36):
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 makethe most amount of money with
the least amount of effort.
Now you see how thatsounds 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 becausea, a system where you have to design and

(50:01):
deal with the package coming back is bydefinition always some extra work cost.
Versus a system that's linearand you never have to worry
about the thing coming back.
And no matter how much you simplify it, itwill never be as easy as a linear system.

(50:22):
Wow.
It just cannot, I mean, even in placesby the way, where like reuse has been
so big, like beer kegs, you know whatthe 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, beerkegs are highly returnable, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's what you think.
But a lot of companies figured outthat that's a hassle for the bars.

(50:44):
So they make 'em single use and they'rejust, 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.
They're easier.
It's just convenience.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So when, when you look at trying todisrupt the market, because you guys
are disrupting the market in termsof like how people think of waste.

(51:06):
It requires, sometimes itrequires behavior change.
Like even my example of our bond, itrequires 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.

(51:26):
It's, um, no, like a, like ashipping UUPS or something.
Ups.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it, you know, requires me to justkind of go outta my way, which is like,
to be honest, it's not that big of adeal, 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 combatthat, like a behavior change?
That's an excellent question.
So the way we do it is, is it'sthree, three very clear phases.

(51:49):
The first is the most unintuitive.
We want you to change your behavioras least little as possible.
Okay.
Like in Loop for example, we werejust talking about our, our uh,
internal sort of moniker, right?
Is we need reuse to feel likedisposability in every way.
Yeah.
One simple example of that is inour return bins, when you return the
reusable packages, you can returnthem and put 'em in one at a time.

(52:10):
You certainly can, but we also giveyou a reusable garbage bag that you can
just throw 'em all into and drop it offlike a bag of garbage and then we will
check in everything inside for you.
So for the first part of behaviorchanges, don't change the behavior.
'cause it's hard, right?
It is hard.
Yes.
So make it as little as possiblethen, and the, and the answer
to that is make it feel as muchlike what you do today, right?

(52:31):
Right.
Then it's about, um, so once you've donethat and made it convenient, as convenient
as absolutely possible, then the other twothings you can add on that will get you
to do something greater than no behaviorchange is incentive and excitement.
And excitement.
You can view as a type ofincentive, but there's sort of
three forms of incentive, right?
That get you going One.
Is the baseline, which is, it's better.

(52:53):
You're doing something noble.
You're helping, you're, you're, youknow, it's like volunteering somewhere.
It's doing good, right?
Mm-hmm.
And that is an incentive that reallymatters, interestingly, more to women
than men, and especially more towomen that care about other life forms
in the order of plants, pets, andthen, uh, interesting children ing.
Yep.
Interesting.
Um, that's why the worst forthe, uh, planet demographically

(53:14):
speaking are single men.
Right?
Right.
Um, so, you know, both of us werethat 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

(53:36):
back, the product is cheaper thanthe disposable version, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So economic and economic incentivecould be derivatives, it could
be like coupons on something.
It could be other things, butsome form of economic incentive.
And then the third incentive,which is unintuitive, is.
Happiness, right?
Happiness is differentthan doing the right thing.
So what I mean by this is we did astudy where we put in, uh, busy train

(53:58):
stations in, uh, New York, uh, likeGrand Central Station, these sort
of places, recycling bins and trashbins beside each other, well labeled.
Mm-hmm.
And we saw how many people putsomething obviously recyclable,
like a soda bottle in the rightbin, and there's no extra hassle.
They're literally beside each other.
50% didn't do it correctly.
Okay.
So then we changedsomething, just happiness.

(54:21):
We put a little sound detector intothe recycling bin so that when you put
something in the bin, it would play youback 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 oftheir 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.

(54:41):
And I wanna say happiness is differentthan, um, than doing the right thing.
Those are two different things, right?
Yeah.
Because like the doing theright 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 stuffthat's bad for me eat, like,
I think it tastes better.

(55:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's almost like, uh, like, likedoing the noble thing is different
than just smiling, you know?
And it's those three things.
Like, you know, you give economicbenefit, 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 goingto University of Guelph.
It's her first year.
Yeah.
This year.

(55:22):
We're taking her, uh, in two days.
Nice.
We went to visit the campus.
Yeah.
And, uh, at the campus, theyactually 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 putyour item that you want to throw
out in front of the camera and itwould tell you what bin it would go.
Oh, thats cool.
That's cool.
Right?

(55:43):
That's really cool.
Like you think, how come wedon't have that anywhere else?
Like, like why is thisnot all over the place?
It costs money.
It costs money, but suchan interesting way Yeah.
Of disposal.
But I really like the soundbecause everybody loves sound.
It could be music, it couldbe anything, anything.
And once you get in the right binand you can hit that right sound,
you're almost gamifying in a waythat's a big part of happiness.

(56:04):
We do a lot of gamified collection bins.
We've done these at like the SuperBowl and other places where like,
imagine like an arcade room, but themachines, the, the thing you play with
is a used aluminum can or used PETbottle 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, thefirst thing was make it easy, like make it

(56:27):
like, so it's like your regular routine.
So normally every Monday I put out mygarbage 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 aservice to Well pick that up.
Yeah.
It's a great question.
So I'll uh, I'll answer it this way.

(56:48):
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 to8% of the public today.
'cause we set up a geography at a time.
Yeah.
But basically it's curbsideand it actually gets cheaper.
Uh oh, interesting.
So, and that's be, but we have to getthe density of enough people doing it.
That's why I just can't launch it.
National.
We have to go like zip code by zipcode by zip code, which makes sense.

(57:10):
Like pilot, but basic.
Yeah.
You get these, um, like zero waste bags.
You fill it up with a certain wastestream 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 doingthat on the recycling side.
Yeah.
But again, it's limited towhere, where it's available.
You can go to our website and, and see.
But on the reuse side, 'causethat was your question there.

(57:30):
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 isall about buying into the system and
getting people to buy into the system.
Yes.
Because if you get enough peopledoing it, you can run a route.
Yeah.
Of course.
That, uh, becomes economically efficient.
Now you, you've, like, TerraCycle hascreated like an opportunity, uh, not

(57:52):
only from a, you know, selling newproducts and, and collecting waste.
So you're having that opportunity ofreducing waste and making it to another
product and selling it and makingyou, I assume you guys make money on
the products that you sell mm-hmm.
In the various, kind of, inthe various kind of ways.
And you're, and you'rea profitable company.
Um, it seems like there's a lot ofopportunities in this space in the

(58:14):
waste and to, to creation to this space.
Like, for instance, having a, a, adelivery service or pickup service, like
in a different country or like a companysaying, Hey, let's partner and we'll
do here in Canada, you know, a systemwhere we're gonna try and get a, like a
region and we'll do the pickup and thenwe'll send it to you and, you know, work

(58:34):
something out with that kind of way.
Yeah.
Is, is this like an opportunitywhere it can create jobs, create,
you know, on, you know, a new set?
Like, like Yes.
Launch a new set ofentrepreneurs and businesses?
Yeah.
I guess the question is, if it is, whyhaven't people taken advantage of that?
Because other than yourself of course.
No, no.
It's what we talked about at the top.

(58:56):
You're absolutely right about all of it.
Yeah.
It's very blue ocean it, and it'salso very fulfilling to solve.
Right, right.
Uh, you said, you know, you mentionedthat earlier, it's like, it's great to
work at a purpose-driven company, right?
Yeah, for sure.
It's because waste isthe opposite of sexy.
Yeah.
It is super unattractive.
It is not just shitty,smelly, nasty, metaphorically.
It is in the flesh, you know?

(59:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Um, I always make a funny joke about this.
So imagine if you took the human bodyand then as a metaphor to business.
What I mean by that is our immune systemwould be the healthcare business, right.
Our brain would be the IT business.
Right?
Right.
Like, and you can put a metaphor, right?
Yeah.
What would be the garbage business?
Your butt.

(59:37):
Yeah.
The thing that is, you know, the, the, theleast 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, apsychological point of view, people are
like, well, hold on a second, I don'twant deal with that crap because literally
that's what we're talking about here.
However, if it can reducethe amount of waste Yeah.

(59:59):
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 reducedamount, just like a lot of plastic
pollution companies, like FourOceans will say we've picked up.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, this amount of Absolutely.
Yeah.
It seems like they take offpretty well and people like it.
They like seeing the videos, they likeseeing how they do things are made.
I would say Alex of Four Ocean.

(01:00:20):
I mean these guys, it's a verysmall 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 tohit like a nerve on that, like
really brilliantly, you know?
Yes.
I think Alice did it really well withthe bracelets, you know, at Four Oceans.
Yeah.
I think Boyan did it incrediblywell with the ocean cleanup project.
Right.
And the, you know, and, and,and, and, and, and all that.

(01:00:41):
Um, but for every one of themor me, there is like a thousand
guys who try it.com Right.
For the reason I said.
Right.
Because yes, you're seeingthe polished success story.
Yeah.
But going out and doing thecleanups Alex does is treacherous.
Yes.
You know, it is, uh, yes, it showsup nice in a marketing video, but

(01:01:03):
it is not something the averageperson 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, andthat'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 yearsto the inbound class at Stern.

(01:01:23):
And it's just 'causeit's a big audience size.
Right?
Yeah, for sure.
That's why I mention it here.
And the point is, I asked this biggroup of kids who here aspires at all
to even explore a career in waste.
And honestly, in 20 years, not onehand has ever gone up, but you'd
ask them, how many of you guys wannabe in the entertainment industry?
Yeah.
Or some other, significantlymore sexy industry.

(01:01:44):
It's like you get meaningfulparticipation Of course.
And that's an opportunity to anyonehearing this, it's that like you can
really, you know, do something wherethere's not a lot of competition.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, it's very meaningful.
Um, uh, you know, and there's not a lotof people playing in it, and it's a shame.
I mean, it's why, for example, weset up our offices the way we do.
If you Google TerraCycle offices,you'll see like it's really bright

(01:02:06):
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 garbagecompany because we wanna show
that it can be exciting, it can besomething that is totally unexpected.
Yeah.
And sometimes you gotta get smelly.
Sometimes you gotta get dirty whenyou like Yeah, you do, but no one
likes an it an easy thing to clean up.
It's just not something thatanyone looks forward to.

(01:02:28):
No, no, but it's also, you can you, withthe results, like even that TerraCycle
has done, and you guys have done it over25 years, and I'm sure, you know, you've
had your own, you know, set of problemsand going up and down in terms of, of
growing a company in, in today's world.
Uh, but you've, you've been ableto accomplish a, a hell of a lot,
including employing for over 500 peoplein your companies, uh, worldwide.

(01:02:50):
Which, which I, I, I highly, you know,uh, respect and, and, and give you
props for, because that's somethingthat, you know, you don't see every day.
But also with the purpose of reducingwaste and making it to something else.
Because there are a lot of people whowill 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.

(01:03:11):
They're right.
Yeah.
But what do you do with thewaste 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 withit 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.

(01:03:31):
Great.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna have people, youknow, to, to look at the, the website.
How would you suggest for thepeople listening to this, I have
a lot of people who want to dosomething for the environment.
Yes.
Yes.
And what would you suggest how theycan get involved with TerraCycle
and some of the programs withTerraCycle to, to Absolutely.
To minimize their, their behavior change.
Yeah.
No.
Well, thank you.
So, so the uh, uh, the easiest thing todo is go to the website terracycle.com.

(01:03:55):
Yeah.
When you get there, you're gonnasee in the recycling areas, 'cause
that's where you can really workwith us anywhere in the world.
Uh, again, reuses right now, Franceonly 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 yourArbon program that you mentioned?
Yeah.
Where there's no cost.
Yeah.
We pick up the waste, we process it.

(01:04:17):
That's because sponsors are paying for it.
Gotcha.
And in many cases it raises money forschools or charities of your choice, you
know, and many programs, donations aregiven, not all of them, but, but many.
We've donated out about $20 million todate in these forms of, uh, donations.
So that's how you begin with us.
It's come in, recycle, and then if youwanna do more and you don't see a free
program, there's a paid solution for justabout everything, uh, available as well.

(01:04:40):
And you can buy one of our zero wasteboxes, uh, or zero waste bags and
recycle almost anything you'd like.
Yeah.
With that said, though, there's onestep before you should do anything
with us, which is the biggest messageI 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 mostfiercely democratic action.

(01:05:03):
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 theprivilege of voting 'cause maybe we're
too young or not a citizen or whatever.
Right.
Um, we vote for what we forthe 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 buytwo will appear tomorrow.

(01:05:25):
One to replace the one you bought andone 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 buywill actually lessen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like that.
And like, you know what the crazypart, it's exactly what happens.

(01:05:47):
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 withoutrealizing that is what's happening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's a, that'sa, that's a great thing.
Uh, and, and also like from a, that'sfrom an individual standpoint, there

(01:06:09):
are a lot of businesses, you know, likeeven 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 thatI live in, you know, there may not be
like a recycling program for businessesthat 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 ofbefore we go about how that works?

(01:06:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
So in the paid solutions, and we arehalf B2B, half B2C, so we do tons
in facility recycling, you know.
Okay.
Whether it's hazardous materials likelight bulbs, batteries, electronic waste,
all the way to, um, uh, not hazardous.
Latex gloves and uh, personalprotective equipment and all this stuff.
Mm-hmm.
So you just go to our website, youtype in the waste stream, uh, into

(01:06:51):
the search bar, and you're gonnasee 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 forjust 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 thedevice, 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

(01:07:13):
it's a pallet, we pick it up with a truck.
Um, and then everything inside getsrecycled and the cost of the box
is basically whatever it costs usto get you a box, pick it up full,
recycle everything inside, minus whatthe resulting materials are worth.
Okay.
That's how we, how theprices, uh, uh, come to be.
And through the zero waste boxsystem, you can again, recycle
just about anything you want.

(01:07:34):
I love that.
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 sustainabilitysolution for a small business.
Like if you're a coffee shop,imagine the value of suddenly
offering coffee bag recycling, orcoffee 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

(01:07:56):
gloves, you know, or motor oilcontainers, you know, that, uh, yeah.
That are produced or brokenwipers, 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 poolthrough TerraCycle does, um,
goggle and bathing, suit recycling.
And that's a draw for them.
You know, like they tell people and peoplecome in just to drop it off, and then

(01:08:17):
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 backon, talk more about TerraCycle.
Yeah.
Because I think we just, we'rejust 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.

(01:08:37):
But I wanna thank you so much, uh, forjoining us, uh, on today's episode.
It's been great to have you on.
Well, thank you so much.
I look forward to thenext time we cross paths.
I look forward to it as well.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tom, for joining uson 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 messagingaround waste and the fact that there's

(01:08:58):
so many opportunities around wasteand to work within waste and to start
businesses, to handle waste, and toreally truly build recyclable materials
or out of like recycling materials tobuild products for people to consume.
I think this is somethingthat's really interesting.
I think, you know, Tom's right?
He, like a lot of people just don'twant to do it because it's stinky and it
could be messy and it could be difficultto work with, but if you have the right

(01:09:20):
idea, you have the right motivation.
You want reduce waste,this is what we need to do.
And of course, I'm gonna sayit again because I know people
are gonna call me out on it.
We still have to reduce theamount of waste that we create.
We have to reduce, as Tom said,when you're looking at buying
something that has waste, there'stwo things that replace it.
If you buy a bottle, like a popbottle, soda bottle, or a sugary

(01:09:42):
drink and a plastic bottle,there's two things to replace that.
But if you don't buy it, it actuallyreduces the amount that there is.
So that's something to think aboutwhen you start purchasing things
and you want to be mindful of that.
And so I think it's a greatway to just shift your mind.
A lot of this stuff is just shiftingyour mind, maybe changing your behavior
just a little bit, or duplicating yourbehavior and doing something a little
different that really makes a difference.

(01:10:03):
And I think that's something that I wouldlike to explore a little bit more in
That is how do we change our behavior?
How do we get people to changebehavior to be more resourceful?
To be more mindful of how wecan live for a better ocean.
So I wanna thank Tom.
I'm gonna go and point people to TerraCycles website, which is terracycle.com.
I'll put it in the show notes, thelink in the show notes, and if you
have any questions or comments, orleave them in the comments below

(01:10:25):
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'llanswer you as soon as possible.
I wanna thank you so much for Tomfor joining us on this podcast,
and thank you for listeningand your insightful questions.

(01:10:46):
Any concerns or anything, comments,we'd love to hear from you.
I wanna thank you so much forjoining me on today's episode of the
How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin fromthe True North Strong and Free.
Have a great day.
We'll talk to you next timeand happy conservation.

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