In-Class+Assignment+for+W2


 * 1. Define “upcycling”. **

Terracycle defines upcycling as using every aspect of waste as value.I t is a piece of waste that can be seen as two things. For example, a chip bag is made from plastic and is already in the form of a bag.


 * 2. Define “downcycling”. **

Downcycling is when you take materials, normally trashed and taken to the landfill, and make new products out of them. This is much more efficient than recycle because it takes much less energy to downcycle. For example, a downcycle product would be a lunch bag made out of the packaging for Oreos.


 * 3. Why is Terracycle one of the largest growing sustainable businesses in the world? **

Since Tom Szaky started the company in 2001, it has grown into one of the fastest-growing green companies in the world. He started Terracycle by producing organic fertilizer, packaging liquid worm poop in used soda bottles. They have an effective recycling system going on and have recruited about 31 million people to help make a change.


 * 4. Who started this business, and why have they been so successful? **

Tom Skazy came up with the business idea when he was only 10 years old. His initial answer was to use worms to eat organic waste. He places 4th in the Princeton Business Plan contest using his world idea. He went ahead with his idea anyways. He met Suman Sinha, who became Terracycle’s first invester. Putting in money to rent Tom’s first office space. Later on becoming sponders by several other different business that allowed Terracycle to reuse their waste, such as Capri Sun and Kraft Foods. With other 31 million people collecting trash, their business has grown and become extremely successful.


 * 5. Describe their business model. **

The goal of Terracycle is to eliminate the idea of waste by creating national collection and repurposing systems for all hard to recycle waste. Terracycle recruits people to join their Brigade to directly engage consumers in the collection of these hard to recycle packaging and products. The collected waste is then either upcycled into new products or recycled into new materials from which innovative products are made.


 * 6. Find another business online which also has a sustainable business model. Copy the link to their website, and write a paragraph description as to why their model is so successful. **

Etsy.com is the world’s online handmade marketplace. Their mission is to empower people to change the way the global economy works. Local living economies are thriving everywhere and people value authorship and provenance as much as price and convenience. Etsy wants to bring the heart to commerce and making the world fairer, more sustainable and more fun. They also host a conference called Hello Etsy, which is organized loosely around the entire process of coming up with an idea, turning it into a product, taking it to the market and building a business that is mindful and sustainable. The goal of the conference is to educate and inspire.

I think their model will be and is successful because in this era, the new thing is to “DIY”. It’s the latest trend and to get people involved that enjoy making things and help start a business around that would be fantastic. Recycling and touching worms and waste are not everyone’s cup of tea, but this is an alternative way to act on sustainability.

http://www.etsy.com http://www.helloetsy.com