Brand Mentions: TerraCycle, Cigarette Brigade

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BOUNCING BACKWall Street continued its rallyyesterday, with the Dow closing justbelow 8,000. Earlier in the day itbriefly cracked that level for the firsttime in almost two months.

Fueled by a change in accountingstandards and a newfound perceptionthe economy is on the mend, the Dowgained more than 200 points, withfinancial and transportation stocksleading the way.

For the complete story, see Page 43.

INSIDE

Hire me

Mara Feldman of WestOrange wants a jobin pharmaceutical sales.Our expert offers advice.Page 42

FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2009 NJ.COM/BUSINESSPAGE 41

YEST CLOSE CHNG PCT

DOW JONES 7,978.08 5 +216.48 +2.79%

NASDAQ 1,602.63 5 +51.03 +3.29%

S&P 500 834.38 5 +23.30 +2.87%

DOLLAR VS. EURO .7437 6 -.0121 -1.62%

CRUDE OIL $52.64 5 +4.25 +8.80%

FULL DISCLOSURE

Saying the age of banking secrecy is over, theG-20 blacklisted four nations as uncooperative taxhavens yesterday. They are the Philippines, Uruguay,Costa Rica and the Malaysian territory of Labuan.

DEATH TOLL RISES

The National Transportation Safety Boardsaid yesterday that 66 people died last year incrashes on air medical, air taxi and tour flights. Thatcompares with 13 deaths in 2007.

ASKTHE BIZBRAIN

Q: On a recent flight,an attendant camethrough the cabinasking whether any-one who had the air-line’s branded creditcard wanted to be up-graded to a bettercard. I filled out theapplication and ashort time later re-ceived a letter statingthat not only was myupgrade denied, butmy credit limit on theexisting card was low-ered immediately to$2,300, from $15,000.I called the issuer andwas told the actionwas the result of acredit bureau report-ing a 15-year-oldbankruptcy. My creditscores over the lastseveral years havebeen in the mid-700sor higher. Can you tellme whether the bu-reau was correct in re-porting a 15-year-oldbankruptcy?

— Jane

A: First, you need tofind out whether the bu-reau is actually report-ing the bankruptcy.Often, when credit cardcustomers call about anadverse action — acredit limit being low-ered or a rate increased— they are given onlyvague reasons why anaction might have beentaken, not why it actu-ally was. You mighthave filled in the gapsof one of these deliber-ately nonspecific con-versations and jumpedto the wrong conclu-sion.

You can discover thetruth by getting a copyof your credit reports,which you can obtainfree once a year at an-nualcreditreport.com.

If the bureau is in factreporting the bank-ruptcy, you should dis-pute the informationimmediately as beingtoo old to report. Creditbureaus are supposedto drop mention of abankruptcy 10 yearsafter the case is filed.

You also should con-sider getting a creditcard from a different is-suer. Your credit scoresare strong enough thatother companies wouldbe delighted to haveyou as a customer.

— Liz Pulliam Weston

Questions may be submittedto Liz Pulliam Weston viaher website,asklizweston.com. You canreach the Biz Brain via e-mail at askbiz@njtimes.com.

BA RGA IN BA BEJulia Scott

New uses for trashPros and consof gardening

to savesome green

A green ideaTerraCycle looks to transform U.S. habits by creating useful products

BY DANNY TEIGMANSTAR-LEDGER STAFF

About the only things not re-used in Tom Szaky’s quirky butgrowing eco-friendly company arethe building’s cinder block walls.

On first appearance, Szaky’s6-year-old startup, TerraCycle,looks like a derelict auto body shop.Located on a desolate industrialstretch neard o w n t o w nTrenton, itsb l a c k a n dgreen exteriori s c ov e re dwith spray-paint murals.

B u t t h emurals areplanned andnot evidence of urban blight. Inside,the mood brightens and a collectionof mostly 20-somethings is workingto change the waste habits of NewJersey and the country, and toprofit from the experience on an in-dustrial scale.

Szaky, 27, a Princeton Universitydropout originally from Budapest,who first thought of the company’slogo — a combination of an infinityand a recycling symbol — while sit-ting bored in a freshman writing

[See TERRACYCLE, Page 42]

I went to a friend’s house and sheproudly showed me her new urban gar-den. Actually, it was just a pile of dirt

bordered by wood, but she has plans togrow lettuce, herbs and tomatoes.

I assumed my friend spent all day dig-ging and hammering because urban gar-dens are very popular. Turns out shecouldn’t care less about trends.

‘‘At least I’ll have food,’’ she half-joked.Urban gardening is not about Mother

Earth any more. It’s about survival.Recession string beans, anyone?When my current batch of potted tulips

dies, I’m going to jump on the bandwagon.Here are re-sources to starta recession gar-den:

Urbangarde-ninghelp.compoints to manyother resourceson the web andhas a helpfulplant guide.

The Ameri-can Community Garden Association haspractical tips on its ‘‘Learn’’ page and canhelp you find a community garden nearby.

Squarefootgardening.com is devoted toa technique that supposedly reduces weed-ing and maintenance time.

All-about-planters.com has a list of veg-etables that grow really well in containers.

500 reasons to grow veggiesA 12-by-12-foot plot can yield a lot of

food if you start early and plant a secondround for another harvest late in the sea-son, says a story in the March/April issueof AARP.

‘‘You could grow as much as $500worth of produce from the small plot de-scribed here — and have a great timedoing it,’’ the story says. ‘‘You have noth-ing to lose but your lawn and the endlessjoy of mowing it.’’

A few tips:! Aim for soil that has the consis-

tency of crumbly chocolate cake.! Encourage worms and plant-nour-

ishing bacteria to take residence in yourgarden.

! Add compost containing leaves,grass clippings and vegetable scraps

[See SCOTT, Page 42]

VIDEOFor more onTerraCycle,

see thevideo

at nj.com/videos.

PHOTOS BY NOAH K. MURRAY/THE STAR-LEDGER

Albe Zakes of TerraCycle in Trenton is surrounded by energy bar wrappers that can be madeinto new products. A clock and coasters, at right, are made from vinyl records.

GreenFest 2009 begins today and runs through Sunday at the Garden State Exhibit Center in Somerset. For info: nj.com/pseggreenfest

SILV ER LINING

IRS hopes tax break revs up car salesThe auto industry is in such turmoil, even the

Internal Revenue Service wants to help.As an incentive to taxpayers who might be

mulling over the advantages of buying a new car— the ability to get a good price being at the top ofthe list — the IRS is adding a special tax break.

Taxpayers who buy a new vehicle may be entitledto deduct state and local sales and excise taxeson the purchase when they prepare their 2009 taxreturns. The amount of the deduction will be reducedfor taxpayers whose modified adjusted gross incomefalls between $125,000 and $135,000 for individualfilers and between $250,000 and $260,000for joint filers.

“This deduction enables taxpayers to buynow and get cash back later on their tax returns,”IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. “For thosethinking about buying a car this year, this may givethem a little more drive.”

Any new car is eligible — American or foreign.To qualify for the deduction, the vehicle must have

been purchased after Feb. 16, 2009, and before Jan.1, 2010. The deduction is limited to state and localsales and excise taxes paid on up to $49,500 of thepurchase price of a car, light truck, motor homeor motorcycle.

The special tax break, which may not be takenon 2008 returns, is available regardless of whethera taxpayer itemizes deductions.

For more information, go to the www.IRS.govwebsite and go to “update on recovery taxprovisions for individuals and businesses.”

— Susan Todd

A PRUDENT QUESTION IS ONE HALF OF WISDOM. — FRANCIS BACON

Study details theways credit cardrules changeBY YLAN Q. MUIWASHINGTON POST

A new report from the PewCharitable Trusts details the extentof some of the “unfair and deceptivepractices” used by credit cardcompanies.

The year-long study by Pewwas led by the former chiefexecutive of a credit card companyand involved more than 20 creditcard providers and consumergroups. It looked at credit cardsoffered online by the 12 largestissuers, which control more than88 percent of outstanding debtin the country, and covers roughly400 cards. Here are some highlightsfrom the report:

! 93 percent of cards allowed thecredit card company to raise yourinterest rate at any time by alteringthe account agreement.

! 87 percent of cards could raisethe rate on all of your balances even

if you are not 30 days past due.The average penalty rate was27.99 percent.

! In one year, credit cardcompanies raised rates on about70 million accounts — about aquarter of all open accounts.That has resulted in about$10 billion in additional feesand charges.

In December, new federalregulations were issued that imposesweeping changes in the credit cardindustry, limiting these so-called“unfair and deceptive practices.”But those rules don’t take effectuntil 2010, so this week both theHouse and the Senate are lookingat legislation that would enactsimilar rules before then.

But credit card companies —and even the Federal Reserve —say it simply is not possibleto overhaul the industry beforethe 2010 deadline.

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Mentions: Wal-Mart, Capri-Sun (kra!), Mars)

RECYCLINGP R O D U C T N E W SSCRAP ! C&D ! WASTE ! BIOMASS ! COMPOSTING

RECYCLINGPRODUCTNEWS.COMVOLUME 23 / NUMBER 4 / MAY/JUNE 2015

Equipped for success in scrapNew optical sorting machine introducedCleaning up to cut down on demolition costs

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Young entrepreneur takes materials collection and recovery to the next level

TOM SZAKY:RECYCLING THE NONRECYCLABLE

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It’s unusual for a company with revenue of $18 million to bypass media buys to help spread the word about its products and ser-vices, instead depending almost solely on non-paid, public rela-tions efforts.

But TerraCycle isn’t your usual company. Founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, then a 20-year-old Princeton University freshman, the recycling company began by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid-worm poop in used soda bottles. From that, one might suspect that

TerraCycle would have a busi-ness model that’s different from the mainstream.

Here’s the model: The com-pany creates recycling systems for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste. Anyone can sign up for these programs, called the Brigades, and start sending TerraCycle the waste. TerraCycle then converts the collected waste into a wide variety of products and mate-rials. With more than 20 million people collecting waste in more than 20 countries, TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create moe than 1,500 different prod-ucts available at major retailers, ranging from Wal-Mart to Whole Foods Market.

Many of the Brigade pro-grams are executed through

partnerships with some big brands such as Frito-Lay, Kraft Foods, Kimberly Clark, Logitech, and L’Oreal. And they’re all promoted largely via TerraCycle’s PR team.

BUTT BRIGADEIn November 2012, TerraCycle started a program with Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co.(SFNTC), a subsidiary of Reynolds American.

Sensitive to public opinion about smoking and limited by the FTC on how it can market and advertise, SFNTC has focused on sustainability, according to Seth Moskowitz, director of communications.

“All of our facilities are green powered, and since the 1990s we’ve been working with farmers to reduce pesticide use in growing tobacco,” he says.

One green problem that won’t go away: cigarette litter, mainly used butts that people toss on the ground. In 2009 an America the Beautiful study deemed cigarette butts as the most littered item in the country.

Three years later, SFNTC heard that TerraCycle had developed a process to recycle cigarette butts, as well as the inner foil in cigarette packs and a pack’s outer plastic wrapping. “They found a way to turn all of them into recycled compo-nents that could be made into new items,” Moskowitz says. “It’s a great solution.”

SFNTC saw in TerraCycle an opportunity to tackle this problem and add another component to its sustainability program.

So, in June 2012 the com-pany signed on with TerraCycle for what would be called the Cigarette Waste Recycling Program. The program is driven by organizations and individuals who sign-up for free on TerraCycle’s website to become members of the “Cigarette Waste Brigade.” These members collect and ship the waste to TerraCycle.

In turn, TerraCycle would pay for shipping and donate $1 for every pound collected to Keep America Beautiful’s anti-cigarette litter program

Companies: TerraCycle and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Timeframe: Nov. 2012 - PresentBudget: $14,493 (as of March 1)

▶Case Study

4 prnewsonline.com | 3.11.13

4 Tips to Executing the Perfect PR for PartnersBy Lauren Taylor, Director of U.S. PR, TerraCycle

TerraCycle’s partners are some of the largest con-sumer products companies in the world. In return for sponsoring our recycling programs, they expect world-class ROI, including PR. Working in partnership adds variety and dimension to your outreach. Here are some tips on how to conduct media relations for any partner.

Treat a partner like a client: Provide all assets and strategy documents in advance; create in-depth PR reports with ROI sum-marries at the end of any campaign.

Provide partners with the necessary assets: This way they’ll understand the partnership, stay on message and create their own PR opportunities. We provide Q&A documents to make sure our contacts fully understand how TerraCycle works and the ben-efits of the recycling program.

Look for new media categories and focus areas to target: Your outreach opportunities can be expanded through a partner-ship. For instance, we wouldn’t be able to tell the TerraCycle story to tobacco media if we didn’t have a cigarette manufacturer as a recycling partner.

Your partnership may not be a focus for your main contact, so that means you should regularly suggest ideas that will show consumers and media why the program is important.

TerraCycle’s very first Cigarette Waste Brigade participant was a beach clean-up effort in San Diego, called RippleLife.org. Ripple Life Founder Curtis Baffico prepares his first shipment to TerraCycle.

TerraCycle Teams with Tobacco Company for Cigarette Waste Collection Effort—No Ifs, Ands or Butts About It

Photo courtesy of TerraC

ycle

PR PartnershipsMedia Relations CSR

Lauren Taylor