Tom Szaky | |
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| Born | 14 January 1982 |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Occupation | CEO of TerraCycle |
| Years active | 2001–present |
Tom Szaky (born 14 January 1982) is the CEO and founder of TerraCycle, a private, US-based business headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey that turns non-recyclable pre-consumer and post-consumer waste into raw material to be used in new products. [1] [2]
Szaky's parents are medical doctors, and Szaky is an only child. [3] [4] At age four, Szaky left his home in Hungary after the Chernobyl disaster. [5] In 1987, Szaky immigrated to Canada, [5] where he grew up in Toronto. [6] Szaky attended high school at Upper Canada College. [5] [6] Szaky notes that growing up in Canada and around the strong conservationist movement there is what sparked his interest in environmentalism. [7] According to Szaky, he became fascinated with the concept of recycling after seeing the “astounding” things people threw in the trash, adding that the first television set he ever saw was being thrown in the garbage. This experience proved formative as he credits it with helping him understand that waste was a “modern idea.” [7]
He started to attend college at Princeton University, originally intending to major in psychology and economics. [8] He dropped out during his sophomore year to develop his green recycling business model, known as TerraCycle. [9]
Early on in his career, Tom started three small 'dot.com' companies. [10] These were Werehome.com, Priority.com, and studentmarks.com. [8] Building on his early success, he attended Princeton University where he studied economics and merged his interest in environmentalism and social good with his entrepreneurial studies. Following a road trip to Montreal, Szaky discovered vermicompost and developed a business plan for the Entrepreneurship Club's annual Business Plan Competition that centered around the business model of converting garbage into worm poop fertilizer. Even though he placed fourth in the competition, the seed that would become TerraCycle was planted along with the company's first product in mind. [11] [12] Szaky sits on the board of the World Economic Forum Consumers Beyond Waste initiative. [13] [14]
Armed with initial capital funding generated through family, friends and monetary awards earned via additional business plan contests, [15] [16] Szaky purchased a $20,000 continuous flow composting system that converted organic waste from the dining halls of Princeton University [12] into fertilizer through the use of worms. [17] It was at that time TerraCycle's corporate breakthrough came, when Szaky realized that by utilizing discarded plastic bottles as the packaging for the fertilizer, which he engaged schools and local organizations to collect, [12] [18] he could reduce production costs and allow the fertilizer to be marketed as “an entire product made of garbage.” [19] [20] [21] In 2004, the company secured its first high-profile clients with Home Depot Canada and Wal-Mart Canada agreeing to carry TerraCycle products, thereby solidifying the company as a viable business. [12] [22]
In 2006, Tom was named the "#1 CEO under thirty" by Inc. magazine in its July 2006 issue for his work at TerraCycle. [23]
In 2007, TerraCycle pivoted away from organic fertilizer manufacturing and began moving toward developing recycling solutions and collection systems designed to recycle products and packaging that is traditionally not recyclable through standard municipal waste facilities. Once collected, the packaging is cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded to make new recycled products. Since the company's inception, Szaky and TerraCycle designed the world's first recycling processes for cigarette butts, soiled diapers, and chewing gum. [24] [25] [26] In 2021, The Last Beach Cleanup filed a Green guides claim against TerraCycle and consumer packaged goods companies, with the complaint withdrawn when TerraCycle agreed to pay legal fees. [27]
At the 2019 World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Szaky announced Loop, a global circular shopping platform that utilizes durable containers that can be reused, recycled, or both. [28] In May of the same year, Szaky launched the first trial of Loop in Paris, France. [29] Carrefour, a French multinational retailer and owner of one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world, was announced as Loop's founding retail partner for the Paris trial with plans to make the Loop service available in its brick-and-mortar stores at a future date. [30] [31]
The U.S. pilot program launched in late May in the Mid-Atlantic region of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C., with Kroger Co., the country's largest grocery retailer, and Walgreens, one of the nation's largest pharmacy chains, as Loop's founding retailers in the United States. [32] [33] Due to consumer demand, additional East Coast markets were added just a couple months later. Loop will launch in Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the western U.S. in 2020. [34]
Tom created, produced and starred in TerraCycle's reality show, Human Resources which aired 3 ten-episode seasons on Pivot from 2014 to 2016. [35]
He has published four books since 2009:
Tom is married to Avigail Adam and has four children. [40]
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy use, air pollution and water pollution.
Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resources into by-products, products and services which can be bought and sold to meet the needs of humanity. Industrial ecology seeks to quantify the material flows and document the industrial processes that make modern society function. Industrial ecologists are often concerned with the impacts that industrial activities have on the environment, with use of the planet's supply of natural resources, and with problems of waste disposal. Industrial ecology is a young but growing multidisciplinary field of research which combines aspects of engineering, economics, sociology, toxicology and the natural sciences.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a strategy to add all of the estimated environmental costs associated with a product throughout the product life cycle to the market price of that product, contemporarily mainly applied in the field of waste management. Such societal costs are typically externalities to market mechanisms, with a common example being the impact of cars.
Zero waste, or waste minimization, is a set of principles focused on waste prevention that encourages redesigning resource life cycles so that all products are repurposed and/or reused. The goal of the movement is to avoid sending trash to landfills, incinerators, oceans, or any other part of the environment. Currently 9% of global plastic is recycled. In a zero waste system, all materials are reused until the optimum level of consumption is reached.
Glass recycling is the processing of waste glass into usable products. Glass that is crushed or imploded and ready to be remelted is called cullet. There are two types of cullet: internal and external. Internal cullet is composed of defective products detected and rejected by a quality control process during the industrial process of glass manufacturing, transition phases of product changes and production offcuts. External cullet is waste glass that has been collected or reprocessed with the purpose of recycling. External cullet is classified as waste. The word "cullet", when used in the context of end-of-waste, will always refer to external cullet.
Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose or to fulfill a different function. It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of used items to make raw materials for the manufacture of new products. Reuse – by taking, but not reprocessing, previously used items – helps save time, money, energy and resources. In broader economic terms, it can make quality products available to people and organizations with limited means, while generating jobs and business activity that contribute to the economy.
TerraCycle is a private U.S.-based recycling business headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey. It primarily runs a volunteer-based recycling platform to collect non-recyclable pre-consumer and post-consumer waste on behalf of corporate donors, municipalities, and individuals to turn it into raw material to be used in new products. TerraCycle also manages Loop, a consumer-products shopping service with reusable packaging.
Precycling is the practice of reducing waste by attempting to avoid buying items which will generate waste into home or business. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also cites that precycling is the preferred method of integrated solid waste management because it cuts waste at its source and therefore trash is eliminated before it is created. According to the EPA, precycling is also characterized as a decision-making process on the behalf of the consumer because it involves making informed judgments regarding a product's waste implications. The implications that are taken into consideration by the consumer include: whether a product is reusable, durable, or repairable; made from renewable or non-renewable resources; over-packaged; and whether or not the container is reusable.
Textile recycling is the process of recovering fiber, yarn, or fabric and reprocessing the material into new, useful products. Textile waste is split into pre-consumer and post-consumer waste and is sorted into five different categories derived from a pyramid model. Textiles can be either reused or mechanically/chemically recycled.
Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value.
A circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. CE aims to tackle global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by emphasizing the design-based implementation of the three base principles of the model. The three principles required for the transformation to a circular economy are: designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems." CE is defined in contradistinction to the traditional linear economy. The idea and concepts of circular economy (CE) have been studied extensively in academia, business, and government over the past ten years. CE has been gaining popularity because it helps to minimize emissions and consumption of raw materials, open up new market prospects and, principally, increase the sustainability of consumption and improve resource efficiency.
Resource recovery is using wastes as an input material to create valuable products as new outputs. The aim is to reduce the amount of waste generated, thereby reducing the need for landfill space, and optimising the values created from waste. Resource recovery delays the need to use raw materials in the manufacturing process. Materials found in municipal solid waste, construction and demolition waste, commercial waste and industrial wastes can be used to recover resources for the manufacturing of new materials and products. Plastic, paper, aluminium, glass and metal are examples of where value can be found in waste.
Waste management in Russia refers to the legislation, actions and processes pertaining to the management of the various waste types encountered throughout the Russian Federation. The basis of legal governance for waste management in Russia at the federal level is outlined through Federal Law No. 89-FZ, which defines waste as “the remains of raw materials, materials, semi-finished products, other articles or products that have been formed in the process of production or consumption as well as the goods (products) that have lost their consumer properties”.
Sustainable Materials Management is a systemic approach to using and reusing materials more productively over their entire lifecycles. It represents a change in how a society thinks about the use of natural resources and environmental protection. By looking at a product's entire lifecycle new opportunities can be found to reduce environmental impacts, conserve resources, and reduce costs.
Recycling in Australia is a widespread, and comprehensive part of waste management in Australia, with 60% of all waste collected being recycled. Recycling is collected from households, commercial businesses, industries and construction. Despite its prominence, household recycling makes up only a small part (13%) of Australia's total recycling. It generally occurs through kerbside recycling collections such as the commingled recycling bin and food/garden organics recycling bin, drop-off and take-back programs, and various other schemes. Collection and management of household recycling typically falls to local councils, with private contractors collecting commercial, industrial and construction recycling. In addition to local council regulations, legislation and overarching policies are implemented and managed by the state and federal governments.
A take-back system or simply takeback is one of the primary channels of waste collection, especially for e-waste, besides municipal sites. Take-back is the idea that manufacturers and sellers "take back" the products that are at the end of their lives. Take-back is aimed to reduce a business' environmental impacts on the earth and also increase efficiency and lower costs for their business models. "Take-back regulations have targeted a wide array of products including packaging, batteries, automobiles, and electronics" and economic value can be found from recycling or re-manufacturing such products. "The programs benefit municipalities by lowering their overall waste disposal costs and reducing the burden on landfill sites". Although for certain companies, the take-back system is mandatory under legislation, many do it voluntarily.
Closed-loop recycling is the process by which a product or material can be used and then turned into a new product indefinitely without losing its properties during the recycling process.
South Korean waste disposal policy operates under the Ministry of Environment. Waste is required to be separated into four parts: landfill waste, organic waste, recyclable waste, and large waste items. Recyclable waste such as: paper, plastics and glass, should be separated before disposal. Fines are applicable to violations of the policy.
Landbell AG für Rückhol-Systeme – or Landbell Group - is a service provider that carries out take-back and recycling obligations for companies. It supports companies in meeting their extended producer responsibility (EPR) obligations and other product and packaging related requirements. The company operates worldwide through its own network of producer responsibility organisations (PROs). Landbell Group's head office is located in Mainz.
Closed Loop Box Reuse, is the process by which boxes or other containers are reused many times. It is a form of reusable packaging.
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