We are arguably in the midst of the biggest boom the green-business movement has ever seen, with all those who have been paving the way for more than two decades saying that we are truly at the turning point. So what will happen now that we are mired the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression?

The recycling industry has already been hit hard. With low gas prices, the cost of plastic has taken a nose dive, and manufacturers are not ordering recycled plastic at the record levels they were a few months ago when prices at the pump hovered around $4. Also, and perhaps most importantly, consumers are steering clear of anything with premium prices (almost the exact definition of most green products).

So what should green business leaders do? Together, we cannot let a recession kill the amazing momentum that has taken the movement mainstream. This blog is not here to present solutions, but to identify issues, raise questions, and ask for your thoughts on what we can do. With that, I invite you to share your perspectives.

Did you know the trade show industry is second only to the construction industry in the amount of waste it generates? The garbage comes from packaging, samples, handouts, and much more, and it piles up for days, creating endless pounds of unused or barely used materials! As someone deeply committed to eco-friendly practices, I've found my company participating in fewer and fewer shows.

However, in December, I spoke at a unique event called Eco Gift in Santa Monica, Calif. Unlike many trade shows, Eco Gift had a stated goal of being Zero Waste, or as close as they could get! The event featured many CSR companies showing off their products and services. Since I was speaking at the show, and given what I had read about the trade show's environmental commitments, I decided to have TerraCycle participate as a vendor as well. Zero Waste at a trade show is by all practical measures impossible, without putting serious restrictions on what vendors are allowed to bring to the show. Despite all the challenges presented with such an ambitious goal, Eco Gift was able to get to almost 90 percent no waste!

To help reach their goal of minimum waste, Eco Gift setup "Resource Recovery Stations" to help divert every piece of material that could be reused or recycled. The stations included a bin for recycling, a bin for compostable materials, and a bin ominously labeled "landfill" for non-recyclable materials. Because many vendors and consumers might not know the difference between recyclable and compostable, they actually provided trained volunteers to stand by the Resource Recovery Stations to help people get their material to the right bin! I loved Eco Gift's efforts and organization in trying to tackle an issue with many moving parts.

As an eco-entrepreneur, I find that trade shows represent an interesting collision of what is best for business versus what is best for the planet. What do you think? Is it irresponsible to be a vendor at consumer and trade shows unless they have a Zero Waste policy like that of Eco Gift? If so, if you participate in trade shows, even as a day visitor, will you take steps to require higher standards of the shows you attend? Or does a company's well-intended end justify an environmentally questionable means?

Are you thinking of raising capital right now? Already in the process? We are. As a quick background, we've raised over $11.5 million since our company's inception and are raising another large chunk to fuel rapid growth. Luckily, its going great, but I have seen the entire venture market transform before my eyes.

VCs are either not investing and waiting "for the other shoe to drop" or are investing but demanding incredibly low valuations. I guess it's their right, since money is tighter now than it ever has. But it begs the question -- how do you raise capital in a down economy?

My thought is, if you can avoid it, don't do it. But if you have to raise some money, raise as little as possible and from a diverse group of investors versus just one larger investor.

Luckily, since TerraCycle is highly differentiated, we've been OK and have closed capital these past weeks. How about you? Are you trying to raise and if so how is it going?

In May, TerraCycle launched a line of school and office products, birthed from the same made-from-waste mantra as our other products. OfficeMax was our clear choice for a retailer, as they already had in place many environmentally responsible plans and support Adopt-a-Classroom, a non-profit TerraCycle fully supports as well.

After the initial launch of seven products, TerraCycle and OfficeMax forged a very unique and mutually beneficial relationship that I believe serves as an incredible model for manufacturer/retailer relationships.

TerraCycle's expertise lies in eco-friendly manufacturing using materials other consider waste. OfficeMax, as an industry leader, is an expert in the needs and issues surrounding office products. Instead of continuing the traditional retailer/manufacturer relationship and pitching OfficeMax products we came up with, we went to their category managers and merchandising experts and did something unheard of -- we asked them what products they needed!

Since school and office supplies were uncharted territory for TerraCycle, we thought it would be best to defer to the experts. Doing so enabled TerraCycle to make more environmentally responsible versions of the industry's worst eco-offenders. It also allowed OfficeMax to have more say into what products they thought would sell best and make the most impact!

From this redefined relationship came an incredible new line of TerraCycle products, which includes tree-free paper made from coffee leaves, straw, and banana peels. In addition, at the direction of OfficeMax, we created biodegradable corn plastic pens and 100 percent recycled plastic pens and pencils made from old newspapers. Those are just a few of the cool new items.

My favorite item is a computer bag that is made from used billboard vinyl. I use one everyday. The billboard is thick and sturdy, and since each cut off the billboard is different, every bag is 100 percent unique.

The concept of a retailer telling a manufacturer how best to focus their efforts seems like a no-brainer to me. What do you think? What are new and different ways that manufacturers and retailers can work together? What are the advantages and disadvantages to working like this?

Lately, I have heard lots of talk about the "Green Bubble" as the next looming boom and bust on the horizon. It is true that far too much loosely invested money is driving up prices on any company to tied clean energy, biofuels, or clean water. The green revolution in business does fit the bill for a looming bust. Many see eco-innovation, especially alternative fuels and energy sources as the future, and rightly so. But looming trends in innovation often cause over-exuberance and "gold rushes" into a market, which can only sustain so much growth and investment. The dot-com and housing busts are just the most recent examples.

Yet, I have to wonder if the green bubble might be a positive in the long run. I believe that to truly achieve a sustainable future, much more investment into green technology is necessary to continue to drive the innovation and infrastructure needed to address our environmental woes. Sure, many starts-ups will fail and investors' money will be lost, but in return will surely come more affordable and efficient ways to produce alternative energies, biofuels, and sustainable products and practices. Plenty of people got burnt in the dot-com bust, but where would our lives be without Google?

What do you think about the Green Bubble? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Nonexistent?

I recently got a note from my friend Eric Hudson at Recycline. By way of background, Recycline is an amazing company that takes #5 plastic and recycles it into new products like toothbrushes. It even has a #5 take-back program similar to our yogurt brigade, which I blogged about in this post. Recycline is a landmark company in the green revolution. I even brush my teeth with the company's amazing toothbrushes.

So how about some controversy? That's what blogs are for anyway (Eric - that's a wink your way). There has been some debate out there questioning whether it is better for the environment to make something from recycled plastic vs. virgin plastic. Here are the facts: According to a published 2002 report by the EPA, using recycled materials instead of virgin materials to make new products yields a 40 percent to 60 percent savings in energy use.

So what do you think? What's better for the environment? Upcycling a yogurt cup into say a planter pot (a la TerraCycle) or melting it down and creating a toothbrush (a la Recycline)? (By the way, I support both solutions!)

As the CEO of a company that proudly touts its products as eco-friendly, I am often asked by reporters, investors, and others, "How do we know you aren't just Green Washing?" For TerraCycle, the answer is easy. We manufacture and package most of our products entirely from waste -- Including a lot of non-recyclable waste. So if weren't making use of the waste, you can be sure it would be in a landfill somewhere.

But the question makes me think about the products I see people use everyday. How many are green washing and how many are truly environmentally friendly. The watchdog group CorpWatch defines greenwashing as "the phenomena of socially and environmentally destructive corporations or governments attempting to preserve and expand their markets or power by posing as friends of the environment." Well it's easy to tell when governments are green washing -- take George Bush's Clear Skies program, for example. Sure Clear Skies sounds great, but the program actually weakens the Clean Air Act and results in less regulation of air pollutants.

It's much harder to decipher the true environmental value of consumer products. That's because the claims are harder to fact check and quantify. Sure, the product might be made from Organic Cotton, but if it's shipped it to China to be manufactured and then shipped back, then how eco-friendly could it really be? But how do you know? Many consumers, busy with jobs and families, have little choice but to take things at face value.

Oddly enough, some products that seem like clear examples of green washing turn out to be truly green. After seeing many lawn mower companies claiming to be green, I wondered, "How eco-friendly could a lawn mower really be?" Then I met the founder of Neuton, Inc., who gave me a sample of his battery-operated lawn mower. I was wrong. Some battery-operated lawn mowers are in fact green.

Some products sound so eco-friendly and yet are misleading the public. My (least) favorite example of this is the profileration of the "Eco-Shaped" water bottle being marketed by Poland Springs and others. It is "Eco-Shaped" because it uses 30 percent less plastic than the old bottle. But what about the other 70 percent? It is not even post-consumer plastic. So how "Eco" is that shape?

Are there examples of green washing that irk you? Or, more interestingly, what are some surprising items you had pegged for Green Washing but were surprised to find are truly green?

In launching TerraCycle's lines of liquid fertilizer, cleaners, repellents, etc., I realized something: Almost all products that are sold as liquid in a bottle -- from window cleaner to ant repellent -- are in fact extremely similar to bottled water. In most cases, the difference is only 1% to 2% of the contents. In other words, these products are typically 98% to 99% water -- no matter which brand you're looking at, eco-friendly or otherwise. This is true even with TerraCycle products.

Most people in the bottled water industry fear that we are nearing the end of selling bottled water as we know it today. If that is the case, why are we not trying to reinvent all of the other products that have the same issues as bottled water?

Continue reading "Don't Blame Bottled Water!"

Here's a real world quandary. At TerraCycle we recently launched a line of ultimate eco-friendly cleaners. Their efficacy is great (same or even better in some cases than the synthetics). They are packaged in used soda bottles, with end run triggers, and moreover, they retail at a strong price ($2.99 for a 1L bottle). We've gained some fantastic distribution from Office Max to Target and have been happy with the sell through.

So here's the question: At mass market, our cleaner is a great price vs. other eco-brands such as Mrs. Meyer's, which retails for $4.99 for a 1L bottle of, say, Window cleaner. We even do better than 7th Generation which is in the $3.99 range. However, we are $0.70 more expensive than Windex, which retails for $2.29, or the generics, which ares priced even lower.

Our sell through at our retailers is very strong, so we could keep our price at $2.99 and be the best price in the eco-field but still be a premium to the national brand. Or we could cut our margin and either match or even beat the prices of the conventional brands. It would hurt margin, but it should increase market share. It would be a bold but tempting move since we may be able to gain market share beyond the "eco-cleaner" category.

What do you think we should do?

It is clear that it is uncool to copy the trademarked and patented Coca-Cola plastic 20-ounce bottle and fill it with some form of beverage. It's uncool (and illegal) because you would be benefiting from all of the work that Coke put into developing the shape and the brand.

But let's say someone buys that Coke bottle and throws it out, and it's collected and ends up at my factory. I then clean it and refill it with TerraCycle worm poop or cleaner or repellent and sell it to Home Depot. Moreover, I mix it in with other brands of bottles that come across our factory floor, including Pepsi brands and other random brands. In this case would Coke have a case if it wanted to stop TerraCycle from employing the used Coke bottles? It’s a moot point because Coke actually wants us to use its bottles, but – hypothetically speaking – I don’t think Coke would have a case because we’re not benefiting from the bottles’ shape. In fact, use all shapes without any discrimination (all garbage has equal rights).

The reason I pose this question is that, unlike TerraCycle, most small companies that upcycle waste don't have extensive licensing agreements with the brands whose garbage they play with. We got our experience in a law suit involving Miracle Gro, and since then, we have become very proactive legally. Is that really necessary? Well, I recently heard about a college student who was making magnets and other knickknacks out of beer cans and bottle caps. She recently got sued by Heineken.

Welcome to the club.