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TerraCycle Plant Food™ Becomes First Consumer Product to Earn Zerofootprint™ Seal
TerraCycle Plant Food™ Becomes First Consumer Product to Earn Zerofootprint™ Seal
Published 08-22-06
Submitted by TerraCycle
TRENTON, NJ - Aug. 22, 2006 - TerraCycle Plant Food has become the first consumer product to earn the right to carry the Zerofootprint seal. The seal signifies that the materials and manufacturing process used to produce a product have virtually no negative environmental repercussions.
Zerofootprint Inc. (www.zerofootprint.net) is a not-for-profit that seeks to help people and businesses reduce their effect on the environment. The Zerofootprint seal is issued through the organization's innovative offsetting program, which accounts for the environmental impact of a given product or service, seeks to reduce this impact through conservation and recycling efforts and then offsets the remaining impacts through natural resource restoration and carbon offsetting.
TerraCycle Plant Food is made by feeding premium organic waste to millions of worms, liquefying their 'poop' and packaging the brew in a used soda bottle. Since the production process actually consumes waste - organic waste and used soda bottles - and since the product itself is all natural, TerraCycle's overall environmental 'footprint' is nearly 'net zero.'
"Zerofootprint is excited that we have helped this product become one of the most environmentally conscious in today's marketplace," said Deborah Kaplan, executive director of the organization. "Having the Zerofootprint seal will generate great visibility and further entrench TerraCycle's leadership position in adopting sustainable solutions to address environmental issues. We hope many more consumer products will qualify to achieve the Zerofootprint seal."
"We are thrilled to be the first consumer product to carry the Zerofootprint seal," said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle. "For companies like ours committed to eco-capitalism, it is important to have an outside entity that can confirm the claims you make for your product and process."
TerraCycle obtains thousands of used soda bottles from its Bottle Brigade campaign. That program pays schools, churches, charities and other non-profit organizations to collect used bottles. More than 1,300 organizations throughout North America are registered Bottle Brigade collection points.
TerraCycle also collects used soda bottles at stores that carry the company's EcoPallet display unit. The EcoPallet features a box in the center of the pallet where consumers can deposit empty soda bottles. When full, the box is shipped back to TerraCycle where the bottles will be reused. For each bottle collected in the EcoPallet program, TerraCycle will donate $0.05 to Zerofootprint, as well as $0.05 to a local school that participates in the Bottle Brigade program. TerraCycle EcoPallet displays are in Home Depot stores throughout Canada and are being tested at Home Depot stores in New Jersey.
About Zerofootprint
Zerofootprint provides information, products and services to the global network of consumers and businesses that wish to reduce their environmental impact. Zerofootprint awards its seal to products, services, stores or organizations that have taken steps to reduce, and if necessary, 'offset' their environmental 'footprint.' The highly innovative Zerofootprint process includes identifying the environmental impact of any activity, mitigating that impact by applying the principals of conservation, reuse and recycling, and finally offsetting any remaining environmental impact through activities such as resource restoration and carbon offsetting. For more information about Zerofootprint, please contact Deborah Kaplan at 416.365.7557 or visit (www.zerofootprint.net)
About TerraCycle
TerraCycle Plant Food is liquefied worm poop made from worm-processed organic waste and packaged in reused soda bottles, many of which are collected in fund raising efforts by school children and non-profit groups throughout the U.S. and Canada. TerraCycle Plant Food is the flagship product of TerraCycle, Inc. (http://www.terracycle.net) a young, angel-funded company co-founded in 2002 by a then 20-year-old Canadian entrepreneur and Princeton University dropout. TerraCycle Plant Food debuted at Home Depot in Canada in 2005 and was honored with Home Depot Canada's 2005 Environmental Stewardship Award. In July 2006, Inc. magazine's cover story crowned TerraCycle "The Coolest Little Startup in America.
