TerraCycle Plant Food
by TreeHugger 
on 02. 7.05
United States consumers spent close to $40 billion on their lawns and gardens in 2001. Within that market, annual retail soil and fertilizer sales were more than $6 billion and growing. Most of these fertilizer products available use synthetic-based chemicals, which have been shown to have long-term damaging effects on the ecology of plants, lawns and gardens. Not to mention the runoff from fields into water supplies and the exhaust from fertilizer factories cause further harm to health. That's where TerraCycle comes in. It started as a study called "The Worm Project" at Princeton University by two students who reprocessed solid waste from dining halls...
When he left Princeton, Tom Szaky took the idea and committed his own time, energy and money into the effort to make "The Worm Project" reality. Thus, TerraCycle was founded in 2001 to provide the market with environmentally beneficial alternatives to chemical fertilizers. To make TerraCycle Plant Food, organic waste is fed to millions of earthworms, which transform the waste into worm poop. The worm poop is liquefied and bottled in used soda bottles. Think that's clever? Listen to this: the soda bottles are collected by thousands of elementary students from across North America. Not only does this help the company in the collection of the bottles, but it also helps to educate the students and the community on the positive aspects of recycling. Students are also invited to a hands-on tour of the facility in New Jersey to see how their recycling efforts have made a positive contribution to the environment. If you want to find out more about how your community can become involved, visit the TerraCycle Web site. Great tip Shayne M.! ::TerraCycle [by KD]
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